Walking With Dark Angels
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: In the future, Sentinels were tailormade for humanity's expansion into space, but Dark Sentinel Jim Ellison is doomed, unless he can find the semimythical only living Dark Guide. AU
1. Chapter 1 & 2

_**Disclaimer: No money **__is being made from this. The characters belong solely to Pet Fly, etc, etc. It is purely for enjoyment. All original characters and situations are the property of the author and may not be reproduced in any way without my permission._

**Credits:** OCs abound! Some of the characters in this fic are based on "originals" created by **Susan Foster, Maedoc **_et al_ in the "GDP" & other series (see her website for these stories). Race Keegan, Trey Logan, Gage Butler, etc, etc, I have used in other fiction, but they wouldn't leave me alone and whined when I wouldn't let them play, so…Note: Dr David Rohl, Austen Henry Layard, Charles Darwin are all real people and the events described relating to them are all real and actually happened.

_**Summary:**__ This is AU and set in the future when humans have colonised other worlds. (Italic words in brackets _indicate thoughts_), italics without brackets _in the normal sentence structure are for emphasis_._ I'm a Brit, so all grammar and spelling is British, but I've tried to Americanise where I can. **NB to American readers:** I do not agree with, nor subscribe to, Political Correctness.

WARNING: At the request of reviewer Phoenix Flight, this story's rating was changed from "T" to "M" as of 2010. Having received from Phoenix Flight several perceptive and well-argued reasons for proposing the change, I agree with her opinion on this. Therefore, this story is now rated "M" for non-graphic, historic, but nonetheless extensive inclusion of and reference to mature topics such as rape/sexual coercion/violence (of main characters and of both sexes), human trafficking, enslavement, domestic violence, the sex trade, suicide, and the rape of minors. This story also contains intense emotional bonding, a few expletives, some  
physical violence and sexual references – all gen, no slash. I repeat, this story is now rated M. Please be aware of these factors before you read it.

WALKING WITH DARK ANGELS

Chapter I – Fox Landing

_**The dark side of the moon, planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy…**_

Daric Slater moved _eeeever_ so slightly back from Intergalactic Federation of Planets Special Forces Commander Hywl Storge, Interstellar Marines, 51st Spaceborne Division, 7th Company. Huge, bulky, with a bullet-shaped head, buzz-cut and a face like a well-scrubbed potato, Storge looked exactly what he was: a humourless, unimaginative jarhead. Equally unprepossessing was the man to Storge's left, Cecil Wildes, Oligarchy Mandarin Primary Grade: thin, prissy, possessing a narrow, sharply angled face with a long nose that only accentuated his unfortunate resemblance to certain Earth rodents.

As Captain of the _USS Nimitz IV_, Daric's position should have been that of standing right alongside these politically illustrious individuals. Daric had been Captain of the _Nimitz_ for more years than he bothered to remember or would admit to, and had hand-picked most of her crew, going for brains over brawn every time; his slight withdrawal signalled to those sharp-witted individuals that their Captain was tacitly absolving himself of all involvement in this damned stupid waste of time…which was exactly what they expected from a man of his intelligence.

Even as he made the move, virtually unnoticeably, Daric got the uneasy impression that the third man amongst his "guests" could read his mind, but then, the Third Man had nothing in common with the pale reflections that were Storge and Wildes in the same way that the Sistine Chapel has nothing in comparison with a child's matchstick men drawing. Ramrod straight, topping six feet in height, he lacked the over-muscled "pumped-up" physique of Storge, even though his shoulders were broad enough to land light aircraft on, his arms corded with ropy muscle, thighs like tree trunks anchoring his long legs.

This man did not go to fancy gymnasiums to pump iron – he lived hard and worked hard, which was why his body was adamantine, for all his bulk. His short-cropped military haircut was dark oak brown in colour, as were his eyes, but they seemed able to bore into the soul. They were hard like pebbles and the chill of one glance left a man with a sudden irrational urge to confess every wrong he'd committed since the age of about three. Daric hadn't got to be the Captain of an Intergalactic Federation of Planet's _warship_, and the flagship itself no less, by being stupid or unobservant. He strongly suspected that the Third Man's appearance had been subtly, cosmetically altered – temporarily changing a person's hair, skin, eye colour and Body Mass Index at the genetic level was _extremely_ expensive and actually physically painful, which was why it usually remained the purview of the "shadowy government black ops agencies" – in short, the sort of people with strong psychopathic tendencies who thought nothing of terminating people "with extreme prejudice" or whatever the current euphemism was. Daric treated him with the utmost courtesy, and tried to avoid him.

He was dressed completely in black. Some people can carry black off, others cannot. Wildes would have looked sallow, Storge fat. The third man on Daric's bridge looked absolutely terrifying even when he did nothing more than just stand there and breathe. (_But he doesn't just "stand", he looms even if he isn't intending to)_. Highly polished black boots, made of _actual leather_, from a real _animal,_ screamed his wealth as they moulded in a made-to-measure way to his feet and calves. The black trousers with scarlet piping down the sides had creases sharp enough for Daric to willingly attempt to use them if he lost his knife, and the thigh length tunic covering his torso and arms had clearly been made to measure, the cuffs ending precisely at the correct point of his wrists. Though dull, the tunic and trousers seemed to have a subtle shimmer, and Daric was in no doubt they were made from Black Widow Spider Silk, impervious to even close range disrupter blasts, bullets and knives, the exorbitantly expensive, near-perfect body armour that weighed virtually nothing and allowed total freedom of movement.

Such overkill did not surprise Daric one bit. The tunic buttoned down the right side of the body, not the middle. In the top left of the tunic were coloured bars, signifying decorations and medals – dozens of them – but above them was a gold pin: a crooked halo resting on a pair of long, stylised angel's wings, above an olive branch and a machine gun, crossed over each other. _Officially_ it was the rather grandiose insignia of a very obscure unit of the IFP Ceremonial Guards; a small, "decorative" regiment made up of aging or 'deserving' 'crocks and codgers' from the regular military who couldn't afford or didn't want to retire but who weren't fit enough to be on active duty. They had nice crisp green/black/gold uniforms and 'guarded' Government and public buildings like museums and such like, whilst not actually doing anything much.

Daric Slater had had to resist the urge to snort like a water-buffalo with hayfever when he'd laid eyes on the thing, because he was one of those very few people who suspected that the _official_ holders of that pin were merely used as a cover for those who _really_ wore it "with intent", for the Third Man was neither crock nor codger. _Dark Angel_, the elite of the elite, the assassins of assassins, the plumbers who fixed leaks, the sweepers up of problems for the wealthy and powerful in the governments of the Intergalactic Federation of Planets. They inspired terror just by walking down the street, and were commonly referred to as the "Angels of Death".

On the same side of the Third Man's tunic with _that_ ominous gold pin, a badge was positioned next to it that frightened Daric even more. The representation was of a large black feline, a panther. Such badges identified the wearer as either a Sentinel or a Guide; the fact that the panther was depicted as if in motion, rather than sitting or standing still, indicated that the Dark Angel (_and if he's not a DA, I'm a pink-backed Quagg Duck_) was a Sentinel, but, clearly delineated, a silver chain was wrapped around the panther's body and legs, effectively hobbling it. A _Bondless _Sentinel: Extremely aggressive, hair-trigger homicidal. _Just_ what the bridge of a B-class Battle Destroyer needed brooding in the middle of it!

As if all that were not enough kudos to heap on one man, there could be glimpsed, encircling his neck above the base of the throat and below the Adam's apple, a thin, very narrow but highly ornate, multi-coloured tattoo. A tattoo that marked him as a member of the Oligarchy, scion of one of the Nine Ruling Families, the High Houses that comprised the Oligarchy, the powerful government-in-all-but name, that in effect ruled Earth Domain, Mars Domain, and dozens of other planets throughout the Inhabited Galaxies. Daric took a closer, sneak-peak at the tattoo and swallowed as his mouth went bone-dry. Such tattoos were individual, unique and impossible to replicate, every swirl and line depicting a precise rank or station. Even though he couldn't identify the Third Man's specific family, this Dark Angel bore the tattoos of a Firstborn _and_ Body Heir to an Oligarchy High House.

Daric averted his eyes and prayed hard that the Dark Angel would not hold him responsible for the spectacular flop that was about to commence. Anyone with any common sense would surely have realised the stupidity of trying to _sneak_ a B-class Battle Destroyer like the _Nimitz_ within a hundred spatials of Earth or any Oligarchy world….

Oblivious, Storge gave his commands, smug satisfaction in his tone as they orbited over the chosen city, like a hawk hovering over a mouse, without apparently triggering any alarms. Finally satisfied, he rapped out, "_Fox Landing, on my mark...Mark!"_

**Meanwhile, about five minutes before…**

"Simon…"

Captain Simon Banks of Cascade Police Department's Major Crime Unit raised his head at the weary word of his secretary, Rhonda. An attractive blonde in her early thirties, Rhonda was usually punctilious about the courtesies, calling him Captain, ensuring everyone addressed Simon Banks with the respect _she_ had for the man. She pointed at his desk and withdrew.

Looking down, he saw a light flashing on and off in silent alarm. His desk was a hi-tech plastiglas effort that required only light touches to the surface to operate. After 15 years, Simon still wasn't entirely sure what some of the keys actually did. This however, he was conversant in. He pressed a key and in every room in the Cascade Central Precinct, the lights began to flash bright blue before he reset them to normal. On top of the Precinct building, one of the larger lights also flashed bright blue for thirty seconds. A certain group of people took it in rotation to do nothing but watch Cascade Central Precinct. When the light flashed it's warning, they hurried away, spreading the word, and soon that certain group of people weren't anywhere near central Cascade.

A Fox Landing did not refer to some complicated military manoeuvre, but rather to the _effect_ caused by it. The massive bulk of the _Nimitz_ plunged down over Cascade spaceport, sending other spacecraft, air skiffs, hover-cars and ground traffic scattering frantically out of its way, like squawking, flapping chickens that are suddenly pounced on by a hungry fox. The stabilisers shrieked as they absorbed the impact of the massive ship's touchdown and Daric mentally shuddered at the cost of how much fuel it was going to take to get _Nimitz_ space borne again. A, B and C-class ships routinely orbited in space or went to space dock, their crews using either the smaller AUVs - Atmospheric Utility Vehicles - or shuttles to get them to the surface and back, since the colossal thrust required to lift such heavy ships through a planet's atmosphere simply weren't financially viable – A-class ships were so large that they were constructed solely in space and one that touched down on a planet never left, too huge to overcome the gravity.

Daric's protests had been overruled; Storge and Wildes had insisted on "maximum psychological impact" – the colours of the Oligarchy and the IFP front and centre, with an open display of power and threatening potential. Dark Angel Bondless Sentinel Icily Grim Whoever He Was, Daric noted, had remained silent on that issue.

Not needing Daric to issue any commands, his crew were already functioning smoothly in their assigned roles, performing the unique landing procedure flawlessly as if they did it daily. Abruptly the main forward screen flickered and Cascade Spaceport Station Manageress Ohlani Umbutu's beautiful ebony features appeared upon it. Her melted chocolate eyes were expressive, but displaying a singular lack of expected awe, fear or subservience. Irritation and exasperation overlaid a weary contempt.

Without preamble, she judged: "Unauthorised landing without CSS control tower permission, fine 10,000 galacs. Endangering spaceport vehicles and personnel – 20,000 galacs each offence; Landing forcing other craft into unauthorised manoeuvres with potential for possible fatal collisions, 50,000 galacs. You have ten Earth minutes to credit these fines to the CSS penalty account and then take-off or you will be fired upon. Attempt to re-launch without payment of fines, you will be fired upon."

Storge and Wildes had both swelled like balloons at this withering recital. "IFP Interstellar Marines, Special Forces – " announced Wildes with pompous grandeur, obviously expecting instant collapse of resistance.

Umbutu didn't even blink. "All fines are doubled with immediate effect."

Daric flinched; these idiots would bankrupt him as well as destroy his reputation. "Mesdame Umbutu!" He stepped forward and for the first time she showed human emotion.

"Daric?" Her, "_what are you doing with these idiots?"_ remained unspoken but clearly shown on her face.

"The fine will be paid." The flat declaration, bleak as an arctic windstorm, cut across his drawing in breath to attempt to smooth things over. "Charge them to my private account."

Umbutu raised one eyebrow expressively. Daric knew her sharp eyes would have missed nothing, from the ridiculously high number of coloured bars through the Dark Angel pin and the tattoo, even to the barely visible black-on-black panther badge. Her slow smile would have turned a shark green. "Certainly, Sir. To what account shall I send the fine invoice?"

"James Joseph Ellison – BY7906ABVX Petty Cash."

_Oh, crap_. Daric closed in eyes. The only thing needed for his life to get worse was for a piano to drop on his head. Ellison, the oldest, richest, most powerful of the Nine Ruling Families, House Ellison, founder of the Oligarchy, who could destroy the economy of worlds and bring down the governments of solar systems with one languidly waved hand. Daric swallowed heavily and kicked himself for not putting it together – while several scions of the Nine Ruling Houses were rumoured to be black operatives, James Ellison was the only Body Heir whose face was not repeatedly splashed, instantly recognisable, across the Inhabited Galaxies media, which meant that he was a _very_ covert covert operative. At that moment, Daric would have been willing to bet that the man's own parents didn't even possess an accurate – and therefore identifiable - physical likeness of him.

Storge bulled forward again, nodding approval at the monitors to where the dark-clad Special Forces Marines were decked out in full combat gear. "Search will commence!" He boomed over the Comm., making Ginelli flinch and lower the volume to his earpiece, "On the double, move out, Marines!"

The frosted glass – _real glass_, Daric noted – double doors of Cascade Police Department Central Precinct's Major Crime Unit flew back to thump the walls with shuddering frames as the Marines swept in like a surging storm wave over a seafront pier, taking point at all the defensive positions and pointing very big guns at the occupants as Storge and Wildes swept in after them with supercilious power, followed by the grim, stone-faced James Ellison and Daric Slater.

Their reception was clearly not what Wildes and Storge were expecting. Nobody panicked, attempted to flee, swooned or screamed. The non-police personnel, including collared felons, either looked at them with wide eyes or twisted in their chairs to look at the police officers as if waiting for their direction. The cops merely regarded them blandly.

"This building is in immediate lockdown!" bellowed Storge. "We are fully authorised by the IFP High Council, Department of Justice and LEO Commission to undertake a full Search of these premises under suspicion of aiding and abetting Sanctuary. Any opposition will be met with deadly force."

The half-glass (again real) office door marked: Simon Banks, Captain Major Crime Unit, in gold letters, was yanked open, and a tall, handsome black man wearing _actual spectacles, _with_ a real cigar made with tobacco_, Daric realised from the scent, chomped between his teeth, stuck his head through the door way and looked the Marines up and down as if they were something foul he had just trodden in. "Conduct your Search, then get out. You're using up valuable oxygen."

The door closed with a bang, and Daric couldn't suppress a grin at the way Wildes and Storge's jaws dropped in unison. Everyone in this room should have been practically grovelling in terror before the military might of the IFP. As if this were their cue, the cops went back to their routine, noise filling the bullpen as if the Marines did not exist. Daric hastily wiped off the smirk, as he saw Ellison glance at him, but he knew the man had seen it. Placing his normal stoic mask firmly back on, Daric stood back and let them do their thing. It didn't take long, for the Marines were efficient. Ellison walked among them, covering every floor of the building. But twenty minutes later they were back in Major Crime; Ellison gave a single negative twitch of his head to indicate no success. Wildes flushed under the derisive scrutiny of Banks, who had come out of his office and was now standing silently, puffing on his cigar and glaring the Marines with a sulphurous expression.

The Oligarchy Mandarin puffed out his chest. "This is the third time that you have been reported as maintaining a Sanctuary, Banks. Consider this your final warning…."

The rest of his supposedly intimidating speech was never uttered as suddenly Ellison pounced on a young, handsome white detective, with stylishly cut oak tree bark-brown hair and eyes, who could have been no more than about twenty-five. This man had entered through a side door near the back of the Major Crime bullpen and was standing uncertainly as a big Marine blocked his path to a large, friendly-faced black man whose baggy "grunge" clothing was as casual as the newcomer's own colour co-ordinated silver grey suit, shirt and tie were smart. The detective tried to jump back as Ellison suddenly appeared next to him like a wraith materialising up out of the floor, but Ellison shot out a hand and gripped him. The black grunge-dressed detective jumped up angrily, ignoring the guns the Marines swung on him, only the barked order of Banks stopping him.

The Bondless Sentinel inhaled deeply; there was a scent on this man – not his, but still there, so faint, but detectable – a rich, faintly spicy scent, not sharp like ginger but mellow, like hot chocolate with cinnamon in front of a roaring fire on a cold winter night. Chocolate mixed with cinnamon, that was it, but the scent also had a musk mingled with it, something so negligible that only a Sentinel's olfactory sense could detect it, musk sweet and enticing. Ellison frowned in frustration – the scent was barely there and mingled with far too many others, some of which also carried the telltale musk of empaths, but none of other scents had the enticing lure of that faint one.

"I can smell them on him." Ellison said, releasing the frightened detective who looked towards the black detective, obviously his partner, for explanation.

"Where have you just come from?" Wildes demanded sharply.

Handsome looked at him and glanced at Banks. Not until the Captain nodded, ignoring the way Wildes' face turned beetroot, did the detective reply, "I take classes at Rainier University two days per week. I've just come back."

"What do you study?" Maybe there was clue to find the owner of that scent, Ellison thought.

"C-c-riminology, Scene of Crime Forensics, anthropology and uh, Law Enforcement and Order History." The detective - Rafe, Banks had called him - stammered out.

"We can go –" Wildes began to the Sentinel, but Ellison shook his head.

"No. They'll all have long gone by now. They were running the instant the _Nimitz_ came down out of the sky. Let's go." Decisively he turned and walked out.

Faces red from more than exertion, Wildes and Storge ordered out the Marines. Storge's face turned purple as the black, "grunge" dressed detective barged past a Marine to stand protectively in front of his younger partner, then gave them a mocking little wave as they left. The ground car ride back to the spaceport was undertaken in grim, frustrated silence, though Ellison remained serenely calm. (_They knew we were coming before we'd left the dark side of the moon and the empaths were long gone before we hit the atmosphere_). The Sentinel didn't attempt to extend his hearing back to Major Crime, as he knew Banks would have a white noise generator on for the next hour; one thing was certain – the Captain, and several of his cops, were up to their ears in the Underground Railroad. As they had approached the building, he had looked up and used his enhanced sight to spot three large lamps evenly spaced on the precinct's roof, intermingled with sat dishes and weapons nests, but serving no apparent function. His Sentinel eyesight detected the heat from the middle lamp, indicating it had been used within the last thirty minutes, just before the _Nimitz_ had landed. From the position of the lamps they would be able to be seen across a wide area of the city. (_Oh yes, Simon Banks, I'll be back. You've managed to pique my interest._) Jim leaned back in the chair, his plan of action already decided upon. Of course, there was also Rainier to consider, and that elusive, tantalising scent that had sent shivers of electricity down to the core of his being. At least he wasn't a bondless Sentinel "on Search" anymore, always alert in each new place, seeking what he couldn't articulate. He knew where his prize _was_; now all he had to do was figure out a way to go and get him.

Considering the fiasco the whole venture had been, Daric was amazed when James Ellison smiled. It was a slow, pleased smile, almost sensual, and it did nothing to ease Daric's anxiety. He mentally began to scroll through all the available missions that would take the _Nimitz _to some nice, quiet low-habitation backwater of the Inhabited Galaxies, far away from the IFP, the Ruling Houses and their internecine politics.

**Chapter II – Wherein Almost Everyone Finds They Have A Spanner In The Works **

Everyone in Major Crime gave a sigh of relief as the Marines left. Simon spent several minutes with Henri Brown comforting Bryn Rafe, before leaving the younger detective in his partner's capable care. Henri had been the ideal choice to balance the younger man, who used his smart suit-and-tie attire and suave fashion style to disguise his lack of self-confidence. Big, boisterous Henri Brown knew how to listen and reassure, and encouraged Rafe. Going back into his office, Simon shut the door and picked up his private phone, entering a code and listening to the phone ring.

It was picked up and a calm voice said, "Blair Sandburg, Teaching Fellow for Anthropology, how may I help you?"

"They were on Search. They had had a Bondless Sentinel with them – James Joseph Ellison no less. He grabbed Rafe, said he could smell empaths on him, but it looked like he keyed into one scent in particular. Besides you, has Rainier really strong empaths, or ones that are in bonding heat?"

"No," Blair dropped the pseudo-telesales voice, "and I take the disguising injections daily, but I could up the dosage?"

"Do it." Simon decided, knowing the circumstances that meant Sandburg, unlike the other empaths, had to "hide in plain sight" and could not run and hide whenever a Search was conducted. He also knew that the security camera footage of Ellison's current physical appearance was useless; there was a strong possibility that the sneaky Sentinel would come back soon with his appearance completely different to what it had been today. "My spider-sense is tingling. I have the feeling that we have far from seen the last of James Joseph Ellison."

Eden was so-named because the terra-formers designed it emulate the biblical ideal. It orbited a G-type star near its sister planet, Federation, the political centre of the Intergalactic Federation of Planets, but whereas Federation was a global metropolis of embassies, palaces, council chambers and all the paraphernalia of governing the Inhabited Galaxies, Eden floated in a perfectly sub-tropical temperate climate. DNA-tinkerers had created artfully arranged, hermetically-sealed parks sectioned into different ecosystems, and residents could float around safely from one to another, in transparent force-bubbles strong enough to withstand thermo-nuclear detonation directly under them, admiring the exquisite beauty of recreated fauna and flora from any period desired. Woolly mammoths and rhinos, mastodons and sabre-tooths, roamed majestic tundra, Eocene basilosaurus swam in turquoise oceans and Jurassic stegosaurus battled Tyrannosaurus Rex. Here, in colossal ziggurats set amidst many acres of exquisite parkland and beautifully landscaped gardens, the fabulously wealthy and unimaginably powerful elite resided in splendour.

In William Ellison's private study, surrounded by priceless fixtures and fittings, his vidlink came to life. "Sir, I'm sorry, your son's Search was unsuccessful."

"Thank you, Mayes." William felt his heart sink.

"Sir, Lord James is making plans to return to Major Crime however, it may be worth monitoring the situation?"

"Do it." William ended the link and slumped back in his handcrafted genuine Earth-bovine leather chair. He had so hoped that this time….

A Sentinel needed a Guide, and Guides were strong empaths. Guides could sense emotions. William needed his son to find a Guide; he could approach the empath, go through him or her as an intermediary, to reach _détente_ with his son.

His introspection was cut short as he heard a bellowed "Da! Da!" followed by the thuds of infantile feet utterly careless of marble and porphyry or priceless ornaments. The door of his study was already open and he saw the fearsome foursome racing towards him. In the lead his daughter Suzette, blonde hair flying behind, then his son Edmund, valiantly trying to keep up, followed by Kia and Jay, his grandchildren. Bracing himself, he opened his arms and soon found himself with all four children on his lap, talking non-stop excitedly.

Bittersweet joy squeezed his chest. His second marriage to Ehlan of Lesser House Van den Gaerde had been purely a business alliance, she wanting the Ellison business acumen genes going to her Body Heir so her thriving DNA research company, Gaerde Biogenetics, could prosper. Suzette had been designed to possess her parents' business ability, and her throat bore the intricate tattoo of Firstborn & Body Heir to Ehlan Van den Gaerde; already she accompanied her mother to board meetings and toured factories. Nevertheless, William had been scrupulous in his determination not to repeat the mistakes that had made his first marriage such a disaster and Ehlan had reciprocated. It was one of the happiest, and humblest, days of his life when she had suggested they have a second child, just for the child's sake. To have a child designed for no particular reason was extremely rare in the Oligarchy, and was a rare sign of matrimonial harmony. Little Edmund shared his siblings' genius IQ and was just as physically perfect, but he had been created without any drives towards any particular field of endeavour.

Via one of his monitors, William caught sight of Stephen approaching, and quickly hushed the children, ushering them out with promises of fun later as his son entered the study. Stephen flamboyantly ushered them out, hiding his wry smile as his own son and daughter ran off pell-mell with his half-sister and brother to the next new adventure. His semi-siblings adored dad, but William had never shown them any of the doting affection he normally did when he was in Stephen's presence. It had baffled him until his wife Karen had explained, "'It's the guilt that you Ellisons do so well. He's trying to be a real father, but he doesn't want to upset you by making you have watch him show Suzette and Edmund all the love and affection he should have displayed to you and Jim, but didn't.' "

William waited expectantly as his son closed the study door. Tall, less broad-shouldered than his brother, but blonde and handsome, Stephen Ellison possessed a calm and affable manner that was in contrast to his intense and grim brother. Many had been fooled by that laid-back affability and lack of temper, but Stephen had been designed to operate in the Ellison family's high-stakes business world too, and many had discovered his ruthless Ellison streak to their cost. He had already carved himself a career in politics as an Oligarchy Senator, now Oligarchy Speaker, when William made the decision to step down as CEO of Ellison Corp in order to further enhance his much happier second marriage and concentrate on his second chance at fatherhood. Under Stephen's direction, the company had continued to make record profits and was cautiously expanding, profitably, into new areas. There were rumours that Stephen Ellison was going to be elected to the High Council itself.

"I'm sorry, dad, I know you were hoping…" Stephen shrugged at William's sigh; nothing had ever been said, but Stephen knew why Jim's finding a Guide was so important to his father; emotional repression just didn't cover it – many claimed the Vulcan in that old twentieth century sci-fi show had been based on the Ellison family. William could emote to the Guide what he could never say to his son, and the empath in turn could persuade Jim toward a _rapprochement _with his family, such as the half-brother, half-sister, niece and nephew he'd never met. Unfortunately, there was still the problem of _catching_ one….

"I need to make things right, while there's still time," muttered William fretfully.

Stephen snorted, "Dad, you're only ninety-six, you've got a good century in you yet!"

William's eyes flared, "That's what my dad and brother thought!"

Stephen inclined his head at the sharp rebuke. DNA design and modern medicine had extended lifespan, but could not protect against old age and death, illness and accidents. He had been only five when his paternal grandparents, Willard Ellison and Yvette Stantley-Ellison, had been killed in an air-skiff collision, and he had never known his Uncle James, William's identical twin brother in all ways bar one – he was a Sentinel who had zoned out and died at the age of ten. Holding out the flimsy he grasped in his hand, he turned the conversation. "We have a problem with Demos factory."

William took the flimsy and read it. Demos was one of the most profitable factories in the entire Ellison Corp group. The problem was the factory manager – Ruis de _y_ l'Almonté. William scanned the flimsy. Sexual harassment of female employees, laughing at them when they warned him off, use of alcohol and narcotic stimulants in working hours, "business lunches" that started at 10:00am and finished at 3:00pm, a total lack of actual managerial duties or work of any kind. "What are you going to do, sack him?"

"No." Stephen vetoed. "That will only enrage his father and cause a serious rift in the Nine. I'll phone Alphonse privately, lay it on the line, and warn him that Ruis shapes up or we will sack him." Stephen shrugged. "Alphonse will be most unhappy, he does guilt almost as well as an Ellison, but he'll see the big picture."

William nodded acknowledging Stephen's comment. "He's spoilt Ruis rotten to the core and now the boy is so used to being the biggest fish in his father's pond that he doesn't realise he's in the big wide ocean."

William leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers habitually. Humanity's colonisation of space, initially Mars, had occurred at a time of enormous social, economic and political downturn on Earth. China, India, Greece, Turkey and Pakistan's infrastructures and governments collapsed almost simultaneously under the "Bride Crisis", as generations of pro-male child biased breeding came back to bite them in the ass, coupled as it was with a sharp increase in the number of educated women in those societies, who were waiting longer and having fewer/zero offspring. A descendant of the Chinese Emperor overthrew the Socialists and declared herself Empress, making polyandry legal. She had six children by her six husbands, enduring decades of turmoil and civil unrest, but left a strong nation to her son the next Emperor as practicality triumphed over ideology, since the only alternative was for the thousands of bachelor Chinese men to marry non-Chinese women, diluting their national and racial identity. The Maharani did it shortly after in India, legalising women to have multiple husbands and despite constant assassination attempts by Islamic, Orthodox and other religious fundamentalists, the desire to produce offspring with a mate of one's own culture and race won out, as the current Maharajah of the Indian Nations and the Chinese Empress proved.

Other countries had broken into self-governing city-states or territories, like America, whose populace had turned against the manipulation and propaganda of the CIA, FBI and NSA type "agencies" at the same time as a new racially-inspired Civil War broke out in the Southern and North Eastern States. California became a sovereign nation under its own President, the Bronx and Queens of New York joining together to expel all whites in a return to apartheid. Other splits along racial, social, economic and religious lines followed.

Those with enough wealth or influence had emigrated to Mars to forge new lives away from the strife of the battered mother world. In rapid succession, science fantasies like stargates, warp drive, hyperspace and stable wormholes had become science fact, cutting down the travelling time between galaxies from eons to millennia to centuries, to years to months and days and in some case hours. Great hypergates big enough for two A-class super-freighters to sit side by side were no longer the province of ancient Earth TV shows like Babylon 5, a stable wormhole nexus was no longer relegated to Star Trek, Stargate and Star Wars.

But it had been William's own ancestors the Ellison family, natives of Cascade, a city of the United States before it became a self-governing enclave, who had brought interstellar travel to the masses, offering cheap journeys to the general public. It had made them and the other two founding families, van Zant and al-Mahemi, fabulously wealthy, and from them had developed the Oligarchy of the Nine High Houses, ruling a wide empire.

Pertinent to their difficulties with the petulant Ruis de y le Almonté was that it was customary in the Oligarchy amongst the Nine High Houses, the Lesser Houses and Associate Houses to "apprentice" sons and daughters to each others' businesses, political establishments and social circles, an ancient innovation that had created generations of cosmopolitan youths with a fully rounded education and experience of the "real world", as well as enabling the Oligarchy to function with as little friction as possible between its individual members. High House de _y_ l'Almonté was one of the ruling Nine, but Alphonse had unfortunately spoilt Ruis from babyhood. Alphonse's wife, for whom he had had a great fondness, had died in an AUV crash on a business trip she only went on because Alphonse had promised to personally look after their colicky firstborn. Alphonse's guilt-driven, dramatic over-compensation for the loss of maternity had resulted in an offspring who was still a spoilt brat toddler for all his twenty-two years of age. Sacking the boy, however, would broadcast his incompetence to the entire Oligarchy. That in turn would make it doubly difficult for Alphonse to arrange the customary marriages and business alliances with the other Houses on his son's behalf, therefore creating ill-will between High House Ellison and High House de _y_ l'Almonté.

"There's another matter, too."

Alerted by Stephen's serious tone, William sat up straighter. "What?"

"Hunter is Captain of Cascade PD Internal Affairs, appointed by Simon Banks."

"What!" William exclaimed. "But he's a Bondless Sentinel, and Simon Banks _et al_ are up to their ears in the Underground Railroad!"

"I know, but Banks did it. He got around that problem though – Internal Affairs can only investigate what an officer does during his _working hours as a police officer_. So if Banks clocks off work at five o'clock then spends the next two hours blatantly assisting wild empaths, Hunter can't touch him, because he's acting as a private citizen, not during his work-time as a cop. Neat, huh?" Understanding his father needed time to digest this new development, he quietly left the study, heading for the kitchen where Sally the housekeeper would have baked her famous cakes and hopefully saved a few from the hungry maws of his two children and his half-brother and sister.

William sat back in his chair as another of his regrets was placed front and centre. Simon Banks, whose family was a cadet branch of the High House Mbaogo, had attracted a great deal of attention over the last decade and a half. William felt the need for some cognac, and poured himself a restorative snifter as he contemplated the intertwining threads of the new events.

Earth had been left to its own devices, though it now had in the main political, social and economic stability, some of the independents rejoining to re-form the old nations, as California and New York had. However, there was still much lawlessness and many "frontier" areas. Cascade Enclave, in what had once been Washington State, was just another such place, until a young man by the name of Simon Banks looked out one day over the ancient ruins and decided enough was enough. Miraculously, he'd found the ancient Cascade Police Department Central Precinct virtually undamaged behind the hoardings covering it and still containing a lot of the equipment. Simon Banks had recreated Cascade PD, an act that was initially ignored utterly. First it had protected only itself and the block, but Simon Banks had used a whole array of begged, borrowed and jury-rigged surveillance, tracking equipment and weaponry to expand - two blocks, then three, then six, a spreading pool of law and order. He had ejected the undesirables but, crucially, had seemed oblivious to the poor, the ordinary citizens and the much-desired and hunted "wild empaths". They returned the favour when five crime-lords banded together to exterminate the troublesome Banks; broadcasting their vengeful thoughts unwittingly to the wild empaths, the criminal army and its leaders walked straight into a PD ambush and were taken down.

Simon Banks had found undamaged library discs and books, and had painstakingly begun to restore to Cascade many of the ancient social structures – jury by peer, judges, Miranda rights, though no one had any idea who Miranda had actually been. Another precinct had opened up, then another. Banks had even created a Commissioner of Police, Mayor and City Council, though carefully ensuring the autonomy of the PD. For the first time in centuries, Cascade was more re-built than in ruins, commerce, business and traders with families moved into the city – it was even now a thriving tourist destination! Washington DC Enclave had followed suit, though the President of the United States was still struggling to become more than a figurehead, and now others had joined the two Enclaves like Seattle, New York, Vancouver and San Francisco in a large trading bloc that shared political and social unity also.

But for Simon Banks to actively create an Internal Affairs department to police the organisation he had run without interference for fifteen years was stunning, and to choose to Captain the department none other than Ellison Vincent Hunter, whom some of the most dangerous people in the Inhabited Galaxies justly feared was astounding! William's attempts to contact his firstborn and illegitimate child had been savagely rebuffed, but just as William kept constantly informed of the activities of his estranged eldest legitimate child, so too he kept abreast of Hunter's life.

William and Grace had designed Jim to take over Ellison Corp as Patriarch of High House Ellison, as William had taken over after his father, hence his business acumen and genius IQ, but they had not specified a Sentinel. William's personal physician, a man of towering repute and wealth, had laughed at William's protestations. Genetic Engineering was 80 successful, but it was impossible to 100 design the required child, and part of what made the Ellison family so wealthy and powerful was that they produced a Sentinel and/or Guide every generation, not the normal two-three generations, " 'Two of your five children are Sentinels, and Hunter was a natural birth, not a GE one, one is a Guide, and both your grandchildren are Sentinels. Your twin was a Sentinel. What did you expect to happen?'" the doctor had pointed out.

Edmund would not be a Guide. After the doctor stopped him from choking on a chicken bone at age three, he had decided on paediatric medicine. With the programmed decisiveness and IQ he had been given, he had the brain surgery that would maintain his empathy, but would not enable him to bond with any Sentinel; already he studied anatomy, biology, chemistry and surgical techniques, he would be a wealthy and brilliant paediatric surgeon. Kia and Jay were strong Sentinels, who would soon begin their training, but not as strong as Jim and Hunter. Those two were twin sons of different mothers; they looked alike, had the same cold-hearted, hard-ass personalities and were extremely powerful Sentinels. However, William had the secret medical report on Jim – Dark Sentinel, stronger, faster, more powerful than a normal Sentinel, more aggressive. Hunter was not a Dark Sentinel, but he was not far behind Jim in his hyperactive senses.

Nor had Jim reached his full potential as a Sentinel, even as a Dark Angel, William knew. Sentinels could work with any Guides, but could bond to only one, and vice versa. Only when a Sentinel bonded did his or her enhanced senses achieve their full potential, stabilised by their Guide, and only then did the Guide's empathic powers peak, enhanced and stabilised by their Sentinel. Hunter employed temporary Guides, as did Jim, but both were far older than most Sentinels were when they bonded, and time was running out. Since his sons had hit thirty, Hunter the elder by two years, they had gradually become more prone to zone outs, mood swings and unpredictable, volatile surges of aggression. Hunter did not suffer as much as he was not a Dark Sentinel despite his "Dark Side of the Force" nickname, and Jim kept his senses ruthlessly controlled, but he was beginning to slip more and more since his abilities were more powerful and primal.

William was genuinely and deeply worried, especially about Jim. Normal empaths lacked the mental and emotional power to truly "mesh" with a Dark Sentinel, not being able to go deep enough to break the mental blocks when the Dark Sentinel zoned, nor could their minds handle the awesome mental power of a Dark Sentinel bonding. Jim had captured Wild Empaths on previous Searches, but they had freaked when he'd gone anywhere near them, nor had he felt any bonding urge. "Ferociously aggressive, psychotically possessive, anal-retentive control-freaks" was the _kindest_ description William had ever seen written about Dark Sentinels, and he was uncomfortably aware that it was the dictionary definition of Jim, with Hunter not too far behind. If Dark Sentinels were as rare as hen's teeth, then Dark Guides were as common as a basilisk, the lizard hatched by a serpent from a cockerel's egg on a dung heap at full moon!

William sighed deeply. The Oligarchy protected a careful image of omniscient omnipotence, but the reality was they could _really_ screw up, and they had! It had been a geneticist, Dr Langehur, working for the Lesser House of Alzo, who discovered so long ago that he could genetically engineer Sentinels with a 70 success rate. Unfortunately, so entranced by what he could do, he forgot to consider whether he should do. Too late, Langehur discovered that he was completely _unable_ to GE _empaths_. No one had managed it down to this day, and no one knew _why_ empaths could not be engineered. The only empaths were natural born empaths, but nature created balance, a balance that the Chinese and others had damaged in their preference for male children, and one that Langehur and his followers' reckless actions also damaged. The artificially high number of Sentinels had outstripped the number of guides. It had gotten very messy.

Nowadays, any empathic offspring of the wealthy and powerful hired themselves out, at exorbitant fees, as Guides to Sentinels, but they injected themselves daily with a chemical suppressant and refused to work with any Sentinel to whom they might bond; those young enough when their empathy was discovered had the brain surgery Edmund had had, which enabled them to retain empathy, but crippled their ability to bond. They were sleek, professional and bland. The only way to get a Guide capable of bonding was to catch a Wild Empath, the term used to describe those who lived outside the society of the Oligarchy or the governments, on frontier worlds, or those who hid amongst the population on planets like Earth. When a Bondless Sentinel sensed their guide, they became a Stalking Sentinel, and would track their prize relentlessly. Unfortunately, though theoretically protected by the rights of all citizens, empaths had found that bonding had a lot of advantages for the Sentinels and few for the Guides, who found their careers, marriages, parenthood and entire lives disrupted by bonding to someone who was inevitably much larger, more aggressive and more possessive than they. The bland, inconspicuous meekness of Professional Guides that Sentinels were used to were utterly lacking in Wild Empaths. If captured and bonded they were ruled by no one bar their Sentinel; they took no prisoners and kicked ass.

The Sentinel could in reality basically put an end to the Guide's career, marriage etc., and understandably many empaths preferred having control of their own lives, thank you very much. By law, all persons had to have an Empathy Rating and be re-tested every five Earth years, but there were many frontier worlds where the IFP was nothing more than a figurehead. Test scores rated from 0-20: 0-5 was "negligible", 6-10, "low", 11-15 "medium" and 16-20 "high". Only those from 11-20 had the ability to be Guides, but with a little practice, empaths could consistently fool the test, repeatedly scoring an 8 when they were really an 18, or if they found that a little difficult, expertly forged ECs, Empathy Certificates, were available at a relatively cheap price, complete with a function that updated the date on them automatically when the next five year test should have happened.

William was too wise to attempt to gain access to too much of his son's Dark Angel activities, for that would lead to uncomfortable nocturnal visits from grim people with stern warnings, but he'd found out through his agents that all the wild empaths Jim had captured on previous Searches had either phoney ECs or falsified ones; the certificate of one registered her as 7 when she was 15, another had been listed as an 8 when he was 16. Since only medium and high empaths had the mental power to be Guides, it was estimated that millions of men and women were walking around with Empathy Certificates that listed their Rating as half or less than what it actually was.

As if that little scam were not enough, there were the highly illegal designer suppressants that an empath could ingest or inject, which muted their signature "empathic scent" to the extent that they could live and work around Sentinels for months or years without detection. Some acted by nullifying their empathic abilities altogether, but the really expensive ones enabled the empath to retain ability while eliminating from their pheromones the "musk" that would alert a Sentinel to their empathic strength. As fast as the IFP Law Enforcement and Order – LEO – Commission produced legislation to ban one empath-friendly narcotic, a new one popped up. Demand for them far outstripped that for recreational drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, mellow or vibe, indicating just how many wild empaths there were out there. The biologists theorised that Nature had finally caught up and "redressed the balance", producing more Guides for the excess Sentinels.

_(Which doesn't do the Sentinels one damn bit of good if they can't find them!) _William grunted aloud in his irritation, and where on Earth was Jim going to get his _Dark Guide_ for heaven's sake?

Deliberately, he pushed his morose musings out of his mind and stood up. Ehlan and Karen were back, and his wife had that special twinkle in her eye. Since babies could be engineered, then the blastocyst placed in a gestation chamber, physical contact between spouses or two people desiring to have a child was unnecessary. His marriage to Grace van Zant had been unsettled from the start, and she had been disgusted when she learned he had a bastard "natural" son born of a woman's own womb with no designing whatsoever, so there had never been any intimate physical contact between them. William had tried hard to be a good husband and father with his second marriage, and he and Ehlan now shared a deeply enriching physical intimacy. He would stop fretting about what he could not change, for now at least, and go and enjoy the day with his family.

"_NONE!"_ With a frustrated curse, Leo Kessler terminated the vidlink and stood up, glaring out of his office window, not seeing the curved domes of the Capitol, Federation's seat of interstellar government. He ground his teeth in futile rage. Ellison had found not a single freak on his Search in Cascade, though everyone knew that _oufey_ Banks was up to his neck in the Underground Railroad, those pathetic do-gooders that offered Sanctuary to the unregistered wild empaths (_snivelling freaks!)_ as well as all the other whining, human refuse that came their way.

Kessler tried to calm himself down. His tenure with the Dark Angels was far from sinecure, for those grim assassins demanded consistent results from their people, and Stone-Faced Ellison's failure to obtain any empaths when Kessler insisted that Cascade was packed to the rafters with the freaks would reflect badly on him. Kessler liked the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed during his career in the shadows of government operation, and, at least for the moment, he needed these military morons. Searches swooped up wild empaths of any ability, and though he lost the medium and high strength ones as Guides, the others inevitably fell for his carefully projected façade of friendly concern, enough to follow his directions when they were re-rated and released, only to find themselves sold into slavery to prostitution and pornography rings or as laboratory specimens to illegal researchers trying to do what Langehur had failed to do and genetically engineer empaths. Empaths made highly pleasing sexual partners due to their mental ability to feel their partner's needs, and combinations of the right drugs would destroy their barriers and make them highly suggestible. Kessler had made millions from providing certain individuals with their own private sex toy that could be lucratively sold to a lab once the novelty of them had worn off. Access to the Dark Angels files had initially been profitable for Kessler, but the freaks were always getting better at hiding, obtaining more effective suppressant narcotics and his customers would not wait around if Kessler could no longer deliver. Since he knew where the bodies were buried, literally, he would also be viewed as a liability.

His stomach churned with new anger, self-directed as he cursed his own mouth. It had been one slip, but it had been enough to get the attention of Evil Ellison: _Dark Guide_. A cruel smile briefly twisted Kessler's lips. Most Sentinels went into search and rescue, medicine, law enforcement or fire-fighting work, but the more aggressive Sentinels, usually the more powerful, were encouraged into the military. There were currently no female Sentinels amongst the Dark Angels, since such aggressive female Sentinels were rarer than male, but there had been.

If only he could have found Alexandra Barnes young enough to mould her into his personal killing machine, Kessler could have been ruler of all he surveyed. Alex Barnes had been a Dark Sentinel, and Kessler had heard, from his reputable private sources, that she had actually found and captured a genuine Dark Guide. Not her genetically compatible one, since they had been unable to bond – but one whom she was able to subjugate. Kessler grinned to himself, feeling the tingle in his loins. Alex had known how to treat freaks – she had tortured and raped the guide into subservience, using him to increase her abilities to steal and murder, for she had been the original psychopathic serial killer. Unfortunately she underestimated the power of a Dark Guide, and her slave had killed her.

The Dark Angels tracking the mass murdering, psychopathic Dark Sentinel had found her bludgeoned to death in her apartment, but the entire place had been micro-cleaned then irradiated, destroying any slight trace of the Dark Guide. Kessler's most frequent customer had offered a truly fabulous sum of money if he could locate the Dark Guide, whose empathy would make him a truly outstanding sexual slave, and deliver him without the Dark Angels being any the wiser. Unfortunately, Kessler had accidentally mentioned the Dark Guide too close to the Sentinel-enhanced ears of James Ellison who had demanded an explanation, forcing a reluctant Kessler to reiterate the Barnes case. Now alerted to the fact that there was at least one _living_ Dark Guide in the Inhabited Galaxies, with the bonus of knowing the Guide's gender, Ellison - and the Dark Angel hierarchy - were constantly on the look out during their missions.

Kessler's customer was not happy, for he was used having his whims indulged, but Kessler's own frustration was reaching boiling point. Simon Banks _had_ to have rigged up some sort of undetectable early warning system, for Kessler's well paid informants in Cascade vowed that you couldn't move in the Enclave without tripping over someone with empathic ability, albeit of varying strengths. Empaths were getting harder to catch, and with more and more areas on Earth and other frontier planets following the "Banks Model" and setting up relatively incorrupt police departments, Kessler's lucrative sidelines were suffering the pinch.

Already the LEO Commission and the Dark Angels had destroyed several empath-centric slave traders, pornography rings, and illegal research laboratories, and the high number of Sentinels in both organisations meant they dealt mercilessly with any such that they found – the most powerful instinct a Sentinel possessed was _protect the Guide_, and in some instances slavers and others had been literally ripped apart by enraged Sentinels fuelled by the fear of the imprisoned and/or abused empaths. Kessler was himself having to take greater personal risks, with the attendant dangers of exposure, in order to equal the profit he would have made much faster and more easily only five years ago. He was under no illusions, if the Dark Angels discovered, or even suspected, that he was using their organisation as a cover to slip vulnerable empaths out of the system so they could be enslaved safely, they would kill him instantly and brutally.

On the desk behind him was plastic proof of his trouble, his expenses sheet for the past month. It highlighted the unpleasant reality that in the last three weeks, the Dark Angels had captured one, _one damnit!_ Wild Empath, and that had been a pure fluke on the part of Race Keegan, the Dark Angel Sentinel who now waited to bond with his prize. If not for that serendipitous accident of Keegan's, Kessler's return would read an embarrassing zero. Indeed, for one mad moment, Kessler had seriously considered sneaking the freak out of Dark Angel HQ and selling him to his customer as the coveted Dark Guide, before sanity prevailed. Assuming he could have managed it without Race Keegan discovering him red-handed, going into Blessed Protector mode and trying to smear him on the walls, there was no way he could have prevented the Dark Angels discovering his actions after the fact, at which point all his other little activities would come under scrutiny and his life expectancy would be about as great as that of a chronically depressed lemming.

He would have to try and turn a negative into a positive. If he waxed lyrical in his monthly report about the freak, maybe it would ease some of the bosses' ire when he told them how…the supposedly captured wild empath was nimbly crossing the great opaque domes towards freedom.

_(WHAT?)_ Kessler's attention snapped back to the actual view out of his window, to which he had been paying not a whit of attention. The wild empath who should have been securely locked in the isolation cell next to Race Keegan's bonding suite was carefully but quickly making his way over the massive opaque domes of IFP Special Forces HQ, heading towards the seething city centre of the Capitol, where billions of bodies would hide him from even the keen, enhanced nostrils of his Sentinel. Choking with shock and rage, Kessler frantically whirled and banged his hand down on the desktop, finally managing to press the general alarm, sending the klaxon through the building…

Dark Angel Race Keegan of the Lesser House of Keegan poured himself a large mug of filter coffee, trying desperately not to smirk in satisfaction. The mirror reflected a tall, muscular, hawk-faced man with keen, storm-grey eyes, strongly reminiscent of that ancient TV actor Basil Rathbone, to the extent his fellow Dark Angels had nicknamed him "Sherlock", though his oak-brown hair was much more prevalent. He was dressed casually in comfortable, soft faded denim jeans and a loosely buttoned shirt. The formal black uniform with blood-red piping did exist, but was only rarely used. The whole point of Dark Angels was "_covert"_ and "_black_" operations, not parading around in fancy gear. Their pictures appeared in no files and they were trained to blend in, like ancient Soviet sleepers, to have normal lives that they could temporarily "step out of", clean up the problem, and then slide smoothly and unsuspected back into in total secrecy and invisibility. The whole point of the Dark Angels was that they could be absolutely anybody – your wife, boss, brother, friend or lover – and you would never, ever know. The James Ellison who stepped aboard the _Nimitz_ for that PR exercise against Cascade Enclave had had temporarily genetically altered hair, eye and skin colour and some padding which added to his already buff frame. Not a single man or woman aboard the famed destroyer or at Cascade PD, including Commander Storge, Mandarin Wildes and Captain Banks, would be able to provide an accurate description of him.

Race got on very well with taciturn Jim Ellison, indeed all his colleagues, which was why he was trying not gloat where his fellow - still Bondless - Sentinels could see it, _but damn_, life was good…and he hadn't even been looking for wild empaths!

_**Three weeks earlier…**_

Race carefully studied the blueprints to the basilica on Sentrus IV, determining the best stratagem for his kill. The Intergalactic Federation of Planets, its President, High Council and various Commissions had originally been a paper tiger, but certain far-sighted individuals and organisations, such as the immensely wealthy and powerful Oligarchy, had seen the potential. If the Inhabited Galaxies were stable and united under the Federation banner, then consumerism and capitalism could bring great profits. A population that did not have to worry about planetary invasions, or space piracy, or even more basic problems like finding enough food and shelter, could spend their money on the latest vids and flimsies and expensive consumer goods. Taxes and inflation could be kept low, manufacturing and service industries like tourism would grow.

Already the Oligarchy had brought their worlds, including the Mother World, Earth, into the IFP, as had the Free Planets Trade Alliance and the Altair Confederacy, with more and more frontier worlds joining. Unfortunately there were many who liked the lawless freedom of having their own planetary playground; many warlords and crime lords forcibly crushed the populace who wished to join. Showing his contempt for the IFP, one such crime lord, Istvan Daerjic of the world Sentrus II, had murdered two LEO police officers, an IFP Department of Justice Supreme Court Chief Judge and two Oligarchy Mandarins Primary Grade, and then swaggered about with great _braggadocio_ to anyone who would listen. The word had come to the Dark Angels – eliminate Daerjic, make it public and pointed. Such action would temporarily subdue the lordlings and keep them unprepared for the near future, for it was a little known fact that the IFP would, within the next Earth year, mobilise a massive military campaign against the tyrannical warlords and crime bosses who blighted so many parts of the Inhabited Galaxies with space piracy, slavery, murders, extortion, racketeering, prostitution, narcotics and numerous other felonies.

Daerjic fancied himself a patron of the arts and a man of culture, thus he had invited himself to the Great Exhibition held at the Basilica in Anselmgaard, Sentrus IV's capital city. Unlike her blighted neighbour, Sentrus II, Sentrus IV had recently joined the IFP and the planetary sovereign was keen to show that her people were cultured, civilised and worthy of their place, so she had arranged a grand exhibition of the alien artefacts recovered from the strange ruins that dominated the southern continent. Several worlds had such non _homo sapiens_ ruins, which xeno-archaeologists practically swooned over; no-one had found any biological alien remains of any sort, but the fact that the ruins and artefacts were always on M or L-type worlds, the only two types that humans could colonise, and that they seemed to indicate bipedal physiology, were enough to send the science types into raptures. The Exhibition would be attended by a head-hurting list of dignitaries, potentates, ambassadors, plenipotentiaries, monarchs, rulers and the generally Great & Good of the IFP. Daerjic felt safe because the place would be crammed wall to wall with bodyguards, private assassins, secret agents and so forth. Race grinned, wolfishly. It would be a cake walk, and since his other choice of assignment was to get togged up in a full-dress uniform and meet the bureaucrats who wanted a Dark Angel to accompany the _USS Nimitz_ on a doubtless futile Search against Simon Banks' suspected Sanctuary on Earth, Race happily prepared his weaponry. Face like a thundercloud, Jim Ellison walked past the room; he had been late in this morning, which was how he now came to be lumbered with the _Nimitz. _Ellison had two expressions: grim and really grim. Right now his mood was about as tense as a DefCon 5 situation.

"_Enjoy!"_ Race murmured, under his breath, knowing the other Sentinel would hear him, and grinned when a whispered but heartfelt expletive drifted back to his own enhanced Sentinel ears. Oh well, the early bird and all that….

Race stared wistfully at the canapés as a tall, English Country House butler type straight out of P. G. Wodehouse swept by bearing them majestically on a solid gold platter. The problem with "finger buffets" was that, no matter how much you ate, you always seemed to be hungry. Race was wearing a stylish, very expensively cut black tuxedo that dovetailed perfectly into his public persona as a wealthy playboy and bit-part player in the circles of intergalactic politics. A brief, genuine smile touched his lips. Long ago someone had labelled the Dark Angels the "Bruce Wayne Fan Club" for the similarities between their public lives and their much more dangerous, highly secret lives and those of the 20th Century cartoon hero, Batman. A small, stylised symbol of a bat had even become a traditional gift to every new Dark Angel.

He wandered around the Exhibition, addressing certain people by name, others more respectfully by title. Automatically they responded and within an hour would have convinced themselves that they had known the personable, obviously wealthy young man for ages. The whole place was packed to the ceiling with Money and Power. Some people, not all female, glittered so brightly with gems that Race wished for his sunglasses. There were Bonded Sentinels present, also Bondless ones, and a plethora of Professional Guides, all suave and raking in galacs by the second for what they were charging tonight. The Ivory Tower mob, archaeologists, xeno-archaeologists, biologists, historians, societal philosophers, forensic pathologists and the like also swanned about with very earnest expressions as they tried to explain to their rich/powerful but clueless patrons and patronesses exactly what it was all about, though in fairness many of them had the tanned features and buff physiques that indicated they spent a lot time actually working out in "the field" as opposed to broadening their butts behind a desk. A great number, though, were pure stereotypical absent-minded professors. He saw one jovial, galactically famous historian spend ten minutes gazing around him in bemusement as if wondering how he'd got here.

As a point of fact, it wasn't half bad, since the dictates of polite society meant the noise level wasn't too much for his Sentinel hearing, plus the lights were not over-bright, being soft-focussed and trained on the exhibits. The exhibition itself was quite interesting, and Race amused himself by trying to decipher the strange markings, christened the new "hieroglyphics", on some of the stonework. If you looked at them in a certain way, the markings seemed to move, like those very early 20th Century black-and-white cine films – all jerky movements and stilted action, but if you _really_ concentrated, you could almost grasp the meaning, as if the marks were telling a story. Wary of giving himself a zone out, Race carefully moved into his position. First there would be the diversionary shot, and whilst every head turned _that _way, Race would be operating _this_ way.

Casually he edged back towards another discreet alcove filled with more of the finger buffet, as if taking a break from the hustle and bustle. Daerjic was there, holding court with his coterie of cronies, working his way round the lower level, shoving food into his maw with meaty fingers and no finesse. His face, once superficially handsome, was beginning to bloat from years of excess, and his well-cut tuxedo couldn't quite hide the definite paunch or the saggy butt. (_Come into my parlour…_)

Race was directly near the waste disposal unit, which conveniently vaporised anything thrown into it. Unfortunately for one of Race's favourite scenarios, whoever designed them was either safety conscious or not criminal-minded, since they were not large enough to fit a person into. Disintegrating Daerjic from the feet up had been a fun idea –

His head snapped around so fast he almost dislocated something, every sense alert. What was that? Tense, he tracked the throng, opening his senses up higher, trying to discern what had alarmed him. Nothing – the bodyguard gorillas, secret agents and suchlike were oblivious to him, and no one else was a threat, so what had triggered his internal alarm…?

_There…_something negligible, woodsy, faintly like sandalwood, contaminated with a bitter chemical taint…indefinable...what..? _MINE._ The thought surged through Race's brain so suddenly he almost rocked back on his heels. His breathing accelerated and his heart pumped as his rational brain identified the scent: musk. It was not the sterile scent of these wan, neutered Professional Guides. He parted his lips slightly, breathing in, letting his taste buds analyse. There was an earthy, like soil, tint, a woody quality to it, someone who spent a lot of time outside, a faint sweetness like crushed clover to it, and also the stink of suppressants, but interwoven through it was that irresistible musk, the scent of a wild empath, an unbonded wild empath. Suppressants required upping the dosage periodically to maintain effectiveness, and the empath had either forgotten or not realised. He – it was definitely male – was "leaking" only slightly, but to a Sentinel it was noticeable. It was…

_His Guide_. Race, who had captured dozens of wild empaths without so much as a flicker, felt pins and needles down to his toenails! Every cell in his body seemed infused with static electricity, and instincts he didn't know he had were screaming at him to find, claim, possess, mark, brand, take…._mine, mine, MINE!_

Closing his eyes, Race hastily ran through a Dark Angel meditation mantra to centre himself. (_Terrific, the calm cool assassin has just become a Stalking Sentinel and now wants to scatter these pigeons so he can claim his Guide – does my timing suck or what?)_ First the mission, then his Guide, control, breathe in, breathe out. Shoving the Sentinel back into its lair with promises of "in a minute", he concentrated hard on his objective even as his eyes tugged to look around. He could follow the scent trail as if it had been emblazoned in scarlet thread through the basilica. In a minute, he assured his inner Sentinel, he would follow it and claim his Guide, but _not now!_ Letting out one last focussing breath, he counted down, five, four, three, two, one…

The loud bang jerked everyone's heads around in time to see a large vase tilt over the balustrade of an upper balcony. Simultaneously, the gas-propelled bullet sped from Race's specially designed wristwatch to hit Daerjic between the eyes; though of small calibre, the bullet was a dum-dum, designed to mushroom on impact and cause more damage. Before the projectile knocked back its target's head, the wristwatch was neatly flicked into the vaporising waste unit. Moving casually around the people watching as the vase toppled, Race micro-cleaned the area with the pin-sized irradiator that he then popped in his mouth, knowing his stomach acids would destroy it totally. Within five minutes the crowd would have overlaid the waste unit area with so many new body scents, perfume, aftershave and such that forensic examination was pointless.

Held up briefly by the bodies of his underlings who hadn't noticed a thing, Race was on the other side of the room when Daerjic slumped bonelessly to the floor, obviously shot to death, and the yelling started. The creature had ceased to matter to Race the instant the bullet left the wristwatch; what mattered now was his wild little empath. Unaware that he was softly crooning under his breath, Race scanned the crowd, but the dozens of milling, fluttering, flashing colour-splattered people made it –

The roar of a big cat made his jerk his eyes upwards. A full grown male leopard, with eerie grey eyes, was on the level above, somehow exuding a pleased satisfaction in the manner of a pet who has just woken the family to the fact that their house is on fire. Purring impossibly loudly over the din, the leopard sat down and gazed up at the man it liked….

Storm-grey eyes locked with bright, intelligent eyes that were an unusual reddish hazel-green, and all else ceased to exist. There was an utter silence as if someone had hit a cosmic mute button; their gazes were locked to each other for eternity, seeming to draw each other into them.

_Crash!_ A gargantuan matron stumbled back reflexively into line-of-sight, and the spell was broken. The leopard was gone, and a second later, so was his Guide, going utterly white-faced, then he whirled and disappeared into the throng. Race followed - he couldn't not follow. He didn't shove or barge but glided through the shrieking sheep like an eel, his sole focus on his prey, subconsciously cataloguing his objective. About five feet ten, six inches shorter than Race, slender but well-muscled, tanned, but with only a few crinkle lines round the eyes, indicating his age about thirty-two to four, six to eight years younger than Race's forty. The shaggy auburn-gold-chestnut hair had been tucked behind his ears displaying a simple gold hoop earring, his clean shaven face depicted a stubborn jaw and slightly flat nose, with just a hint of Native American or Polynesian blood in there too. He was dressed in sturdy leather boots, tough jeans, long-sleeved shirt and multi-pocketed sleeveless waistcoat – standard attire for a field archaeologist. At computer speed, Race's mind calculated, recalling the blueprints to this place effortlessly. Did his Guide know about the secret entrance at the back, down there? More than likely, since a wild empath always had multiple escape routes, but if Race went down these stairs, he could short cut…

Moving rapidly down the stairs to the basement level, Race jogged round the circumference of the massive building to the back parking lot, crammed with cars, just below the kitchens. Near the bottom of the stairway that exited the kitchens, a panel of the brick wall suddenly spun open and closed, a black shadow on winged feet bounding through it. Race timed the intercept, taking him behind the knees, bringing them both down on the plasti-crete with twin "oomphs!" Instantly the other man kicked out wildly and Race found himself fighting a thrashing demon. He had only seconds, if that. Carefully limiting his power, he cold cocked the empath and caught him as he slumped. Standing quickly, he pulled the unconscious man up and placed on arm around his shoulder, walking quickly back up into the kitchens with his greater strength. With this close proximity, the tantalising scent was washing over him with every breath and the Sentinel was screaming its hunger to claim the Guide. A well-dressed English butler type hurried forward. "Oh my goodness, is Dr Butler ill?"

Race managed an embarrassed grin. "Ah, no, he was feeling a little, uh…_unwell_. I'm going to take him home."

Accepting the euphemism for "drunk", the man retreated, and Race exited the kitchens to the next parking lot one level up, where his own air skiff waited, a dull, inconspicuous vehicle that was anything but. Easing the young man into the passenger seat, he almost stumbled back as the leopard stuck it's head inquisitively over the back seat, purring approvingly as Race tucked the man's legs into the front of the car. A furious yowl caught Race's attention. Firmly grasped by a leopard paw was a smaller feline, larger than a domestic cat, obviously feral, but not a lynx or ocelot…a margay, that was it. The smaller, golden creature was protesting vehemently, but was easily classified as a Spirit Animal Guide by the fact that it possessed strangely human, peculiarly reddish hazel-green eyes.

Race had never given credence to the claims of Sentinel and Guide Animal Spirit Guides, and he nodded in silent apology as he quickly took out a phial of sedative from the glove box and carefully administered it, not a moment too soon, as the man began to groan. Once his head nodded down again, Race checked to ensure no one had yet come outside, and filched the wallet from the Guide's pocket. _Dr Gage Butler_, _Associate Professor of Xeno-Archaeology, Rainier University_. Rainier University - Cascade Enclave again, mused Race; did all roads lead back to Simon Banks? Using the on-board computer, he hissed a query, and was rewarded by the machine's dulcet-toned answers. Thirty-three years old, no family, a highly respected xeno-archaeologist despite his youth after partially decoding the Altair Runes. Though a professor at Rainier, he had actually been out in the field for the past three years on several important xeno-archaeological digs. He had written several xeno-archaeology books published for the mass market, which had become bestsellers within weeks of hitting the stores.

"End report." Closing the door, he ordered the skiff to lock down and deepen the tint on the plexiglas so nobody could see inside, then gracefully reinserted himself back into the mayhem that ensued after Daerjic was shot. The sedative would hold for at least twenty-four hours.

It took less than an hour for Race to extricate himself. There were no witnesses, forensic evidence, or murder weapon and practically everyone in three solar systems had a solid motive for wanting Daerjic gone. The gathering dispersed in groups as everyone went home, gossiping excitedly about the events of the evening. Race drove his air skiff to the spaceport sedately, not wanting to be stopped by the police for speeding, after using a voice synthesizer to leave messages for Butler's staff that he'd be non-contactable for a fortnight. A quick hack into his Guide's – no, Gage's – personal files at his office and home showed that he was known to wonder off on "some dig" for days or weeks at a time. Race shook his head. Some people were amazingly non-safety conscious. Every year people died through accidents, illness or foul play because their nearest and dearest were used to them going off and not leaving any way to contact them. Technically he had kidnapped Dr Gage Butler, but nobody would suspect a thing for two weeks!

His shuttle was again small and dull, disguising a truly awesome capacity for speed and tremendous firepower that would put some destroyers to shame. Strapping his unconscious Guide in, Race's hand moved of its own volition to cup his jaw and cheek, below the earring ear, the pads of his fingers feeling the growing bristles. He moved to the hair, combing through the silky strands, drifting in a haze of sensation…_NO._ Not yet. He would not grope and fondle while Gage was unconscious. The Sentinel's protective instincts surged forward.

Turning resolutely away, he pushed the shuttle to its maximum capability to get back to Federation, landing with far less than his usual finesse at Special Forces HQ. Ignoring everything but his precious charge, Race scooped his unconscious form into his arms as if carrying a baby, marching inexorably forward. The personnel who had come in to see what had put a bug in Race Keegan's pants backed down and away the instant they saw his snarling face and the man he cradled in his arms. The silent alert went through the building. Jim Ellison and the other Bondless ones who had been waiting to welcome him back made themselves scarce. Sentinels did not like other Sentinels near their Guides at the very best of times, never mind Bondless Sentinels who might get funny ideas….

_**Twenty-four hours later…**_

Gage woke up to white. Not bright white, or cream white, but pale white, bland white, boring and tedious white. His mouth was very dry, but apart from a slight heavy headedness, he felt okay but disoriented, and very confused. He'd been at the Exhibition, some idiot had knocked over a vase and…._storm-grey eyes, piercing his soul, calling to him, such hunger, such need…._

"Damn."

As if waiting for the wearily voiced cue, the door to the small, white cubicle – no, Gage realised savagely, cell – slid open. Two men entered and Gage glared at them warily. One was tall, blond haired, blue eyed and handsome, projecting a friendly demeanour, but something lurked at the back of his eyes that made Gage's instincts screech warningly. The other man, older, grey haired, was obviously a doctor.

"It's alright Gage, we're not going to harm you, we just need to check you over." Blonde smiled, showing a lot of gleaming teeth.

_(Just like a junkyard dog before it goes for your throat)_ "Who are you; where am I?"

"My name is Leo Kessler, this is Dr Hone. You're at Special Forces HQ, Dark Angel section."

"_Where!"_ Gage stared. Dark Angel, Special Forces, what was going on?

"Your Sentinel is Dark Angel Race Keegan –"

"No." Gage retorted flatly. "Look, I'm Dr Gage Butler of the IFP Xeno-Archaeology Institute, seconded to Rainier University, Earth. I'm no Ellison, but I'm no pauper. How much is it going to cost me to get out of this mess?"

Leo shook his head with apparently sincere regret. "I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. You forgot to up your dosage – we will have to know where you got the illegal drugs by the way, and Sentinel Dark Angel Keegan keyed into your pheromones. You're linking."

"Then he can damn well _unlink. _I'm an archaeologist for heaven's sake!"

Kessler looked regretful. "Are you refusing to co-operate and bond with your Sentinel?"

"Oh yes," Gage snarled back, "in spades, pal."

"I told you he was feisty when he was awake," drawled an amused tone.

Gage whipped his head around to see Storm-eyes – Race Keegan - leaning against the doorjamb, the light glinting off still damp oak-brown hair. Arms folded across his chest, dressed totally in black boots, jeans and T-shirt that emphasised his buff physique, Race loomed large and subtly intimidating in comparison to the shorter, more slender archaeologist.

Gage's lips curled in an open sneer at the choreographed appearance, spitting out "I am nobody's Guide, especially not for a jarhead military goon assassin!"

Race simply smiled slowly, watching the temper ignite in his Guide's eyes and the fingers twitch, doubtless in a desire to wrap around his throat. "Is he okay from the sedative?" His tone was said in the protective growl of the Sentinel.

Gage backed away further into the cell. "I am fine. I don't need prodding and poking."

Race sighed. "Sedate him again, then check him out and make sure he's alright."

For an instant the three men thought Gage would explode with sheer fury, but then he released the breath in a frustrated gasp. He couldn't beat the odds. In mutinous silence, resolutely ignoring them, he was led to sickbay and examined. He refused to even glance at Race in gratitude when he sent the strangely unpleasant Kessler out of the room, but Keegan stayed, acting as if they were already bonded Sentinel and Guide. (_Not bloody likely_). Kicking himself for not realising he had needed to up his dosage, Gage answered all the questions – bar those about how he'd obtained the drugs, which he ignored - submitted to all the tests, and was finally pronounced in good health. Then he was led back to the isolation cell, but not in anything as dangerous as his own clothing – bland white pyjamas of soft cotton - and the door shut on him. The place had a bunk bed, compact toilet, washbasin and shower, all in tedious white, and that was it, just a basic narrow rectangle of a room. On the right wall above his bunk was a grill opening with bars, but one glimpse through it made him turn away. Through it he could see what was obviously a sound-proofed room dominated by a large, bed-like structure with quilts and cushions that brought one word to mind: nest. Obviously Keegan's bonding suite, designed to carry his scent to the Sentinel. It was time for an escape plan.

_**Five days after that …**_

Leo Kessler shoved his hands in the side pockets of his expensively tailored conservative suit pants with moody frustration as he glared at out of his office window. His trip to his office's personal washroom just two minutes ago had involved his usual self-admiring check in the mirror, only to discover his first grey hair (_and I'm only 71!_), he sulked, unaware of the petulance that made his face look rather silly. Altogether he was fed-up and miserable. Iceman Ellison was due to spring a "surprise" Search on Cascade in a few days that would yield at least a dozen wild empaths, if Kessler's informants were right – as they'd better be, considering what they were paid. The chances were only two or three would be Guide-strength, but Kessler had already got customers lined up for the weaker freaks. The presence of the wild-empath-soon-to-be-Guide Gage Butler had set all the Dark Angel Sentinels, especially the Bondless ones, on edge, and each one was hoping his personal "miracle" would be found in Cascade.

Sulkily wallowing in self-pity, Kessler threw himself in his equally expensive office chair and glared around him generally, pouting how things had gone downhill since his youth. (_Grey hair, for pity's sake!)_ He was only middle-aged. High and Mighty James Ellison's hoity-toity bastard of a father, Patriarch William Ellison of High House Ellison, was still brown haired, and he was over ninety-five!

He couldn't even sexually ease some of his frustrations by watching freaks being put through their paces anymore, as such things had gone by the by years ago. He had grown masterful at inserting peepholes and a small standing space into bonding suites so not even Sentinel senses could detect them, but he'd barely ever used the one in Dark Angel HQ.

Society's "awareness" of Sentinels and Guides had risen and fallen over the millennia. The Aztecs and Incas had used theirs to drive off the gold-hungry Spanish, and now the Azca Unity was one of the richest nations on Earth, but knowledge of Sentinels had become generally low, limited to rural/agrarian/non-technological societies like the Aborigines, Native Americans, Inuit, etc., until the 1990s, when there was a resurgence of Sentinels and Guides in the then continental United States, centred on Cascade and featuring the damned Ellison family. (_Who else? They're like rats, everywhere!_) But after the mid-21st Century they had gradually stepped into the background, relegated to the hindbrain of the public consciousness again.

Until humans threw themselves into space - Sentinels were supremely qualified to assist space-exploring humans in all manner of ways. Sentinels came into their own once more, but by that time empathy was seen by many, particularly those who _actually _possessed it, as more trouble than it was worth, so Sentinels found themselves very much out on their own without back-up. However, then primeval instincts had kicked in, first a few then many Sentinels going searching for whatever it was they needed, even if they couldn't articulate exactly what it was they were looking for – they just _knew _that _something _was "missing".

Towards his or her Guide, a Sentinel's strongest instincts were _possessiveness_ and _protectiveness, _but without guidance and only their own instincts, barely understood even by themselves, to go on, Sentinels had turned those instincts _on_ the Guide, instead of using them _for_ the Guide. When he'd first started out in this shadowy world and found a secure way to manufacture the peepholes, Kessler had climaxed often in his little hidey-hole to the sobs of the pathetic freaks vainly pleading not to be mind-raped into the Bond, their helpless cries as they were brutally beaten, or the screams of the worthless whores being violated at their Sentinel's pleasure. But all that was long gone now. Popularly termed "wild empaths", the sluts so often murdered their "abusive" Sentinels, even though they knew that they would face a long decline of empathy-induced insanity before death, that Sentinels grew more wary, less willing to coerce and more inclined to coax.

In the middle of this Sentinel-Guide crisis, as the situation teetered on the edge of calamity, some snotty do-gooder on Earth made the find of the millennium. Much information had been lost through disinterest and simple abandonment as humanity fled to the stars during the decades of pan-global economic, social, political upheaval and crisis on Earth, but many historians and others were trying to find what was lost. One lucky amateur, scrabbling about in the basement storage units of an ancient, crumbling apartment block, had made the find that netted his fortune and eternal fame - the now-legendary "Guide Diaries", whose author detailed his life with a Cascade Sentinel in the opening decades of the 21st Century. Besides the anecdotes and social commentary on the era, were scientific, _specific_ details regarding the "proper" symbiosis between a Sentinel and his or her Guide, most importantly, how to _achieve_ that relationship.

With the find sensationally reported on every intergalactic news channel, cyber-paper, and even the restrained hard-copy broadsheets of the _intelligentsia, _the released Diaries had been the Inhabited Galaxies' first multi-trillion bestseller, and Sentinels were first in line for copies. Since 99 of Sentinels were generally operating without clear understanding, as opposed to deliberate malice, the vast majority of abuse halted rapidly. The Diaries were blunt: bonding between Sentinel and Guide was _meant_ to be both intense, and, yes, very, very intimate without being sexual, but deliberately frightening and hurting the Guide would cause him or her to erect mental barriers against the Sentinel.

Most Sentinels sexually abused their Guides, not out of lust, but rather out of a desire to "connect", with the frustrated instinctive realisation that there was something "not right" with their mental bonding. Kessler's voyeurism became less and less satisfying to him as the namby-pamby Sentinels began to bond in the so-called correct manner with their Guides. Sentinels who understood the _proper_ way to treat the freaks, such as Alex Barnes, were as rare as one out of every 1,000 Sentinels. More or less simultaneously with the discovery of the Guide Diaries, some freak-loving chemist had invented Priadix, curbing the trend of coercion even further. Using Priadix meant the empathic abilities of a Guide would be destroyed, but the former empath could live a normal, long life unfettered by insanity, a normal human being. An abused, mistreated Guide who killed his or her Sentinel would no longer face slowly going nuts because the mental "meshing" had been destroyed. Since those momentous events, empathic suppressant drugs had become even more sophisticated, enabling the freaks to live "normal" lives _without_ destroying their empathy.

_(Which is how we come to this tedious excuse of a process._) Kessler snorted inside his head contemptuously as he thought of the past five days. There were still just enough "Alex Barnes" style Sentinels out there, and just enough perceived disadvantages to being a Guide, for empaths to decide to pass on the job. The offspring of those with enough wealth or power, like the scions of the Oligarchy or the Altair Confederacy, who turned out to be strong empaths had turned their abilities into profit. If the empathy developed early enough they had the brain surgery that kept them empathic but crippled their ability to bond, otherwise they used the most expensive, virtually nil side effect suppressants. As adults they hired themselves as Professional Guides on a "case-by-case" basis, charging handsomely for the privilege. Sleek, meek, neurologically neutered, perfectly blending into the background and avoiding all that up-close-and-personal stuff.

Unfortunately, while a Sentinel could work with any empath, and an empath could work with any Sentinel, each could only _bond_ with _one_ of the other side of the equation, the kicker being that it was a _life-bond_ – a bonded Sentinel whose Guide died could not re-bond, and vice versa. It was considered a mercy that the devastated, grief-wracked survivor often died also within a few days, either committing suicide or simply ceasing to function.

What made bonding necessary was that a Sentinel's powers would only _stabilise and increase_, sometimes to double what they had been before, when he or she finally bonded to "their" Guide. Likewise, a Guide's empathy would only _stabilise and increase_, once he or she bonded with "their" Sentinel. Until that happened, both were like an old radio, frequently drifting off station with abilities that fluctuated wildly, working at 120 one day and "gone" the next before flirting back again. The stronger the Sentinel and more powerful the empath, the more control they had, but that control gradually began to deteriorate as time went on, making them exponentially more dangerous both to themselves and those around them.

So, when a wild empath was captured, the idea was to trigger him or her into bonding heat, but _without_ the physical, mental and sexual brutality that the confused Sentinels had initially used. To do this, one simple premise was used: that the brain abhorred a vacuum. The mind needed something to occupy itself with. Thus, the captured empath was placed in a small, drab white cell, with a drab white bunk and drab white bathroom, containing drab white towels, soap, toilet paper, shampoo and other accoutrements. Their clothes, jewellery, possessions, etc., were removed and they were dressed in – no prizes – drab white cotton pyjamas, then confined to the cell. No books, TV, vids, web, phone calls, visitors or conversation; even the food was designed to be as bland and tasteless as possible. The only thing to look at, through a small barred grill on the wall, directly above the bunk, was what little they could see of the bonding suite belonging to the Sentinel who would claim them.

Needless to say, boredom was virtually immediate. Not allowed any suppressants to conceal it, the grill in the wall carried their scent, complete with signature musk, straight to the Sentinel who slept in the suite for however many days the procedure took to work, thus triggering his or her own bonding heat. Empaths, of course, lacked the enhanced senses of Sentinels, but with nothing else to think about, the brain focussed on what _was_ available, and the empath's own senses did become slightly heightened, in the manner of blind people who had very acute hearing, or the deaf that had perfect vision. In this manner, the empath picked up the pheromones given off by the Sentinel, and since it had nothing else to do, their brain began to subconsciously process them, dwell on them, take note of them, even if on a conscious level the empath was firmly rejecting all overtures. That in turn triggered the empath to go into bonding heat, at which point they were taken into the bonding suite and bonded with the Sentinel.

Kessler bit his lip as he glared at the clock on the wall, which also gave the date. The more powerful the empath, _ipso facto_ the more powerful a Guide they would eventually be, so the process took longer. Gage Butler had been there five days, when even quite strong Guides usually lasted only till about four, and he _still_ hadn't started to go into bonding heat yet! If Kessler had been able to get such a prize to his customers, he would have made a million galacs easy – such a strong empath would probably have lasted a couple of years until the constant violation of his body with the attendant risks of sexually transmitted disease made him worthless to anyone but the research labs. Kessler could have afforded two or three of the latest model Tamasaki air-skiff convertibles, or that penthouse in the exclusive Colonnade area….

_**Two days ago**_**….**

Race showered briskly in his quarters after an invigorating two-hour session of Physical Training; it was only 08:00am Earth Standard Time – EST – but he felt great. Coming out of the bathroom, he was towelling his hair when his vidlink "pinged", "Incoming message."

Going to the wall he ordered, "On screen," then valiantly tried to bite back a grin as Jim Ellison's definitely lugubrious face stared at him. Relatives, since Jim's maternal grandmother Matriarch Kristijana Akureyri of High House Akureyri was Race's maternal aunt, they got on very well with each other anyway, and with plenty of space between them, the Bondless Sentinel was no threat to Race's possession of his Guide. "Oh my."

Jim snorted. "From now on, Keegan, I am getting up and coming into work at 0300 hours _every day_, because if I'm ever stuck with a job like this again, you won't be able to move for corpses."

"That bad?" Asked Race in sympathy.

Jim sighed. "Some low-ranking BBB is obviously trying to score points with my father by trying to fix his son's problem of bondlessness. Since Cascade is reckoned to be the largest Sanctuary on Earth for wild empaths, some genius came up with this idea."

BBB was shorthand for "bureaucratic bean-brain". "You don't think it'll work?"

A derisive snort, "Storge is a jarhead who wouldn't know initiative and originality if they bit him on the ass. Wildes is pure politician – as useful as building a lion cage out of spun glass!"

"_Leopard_," murmured Gage.

"What?"

"Nothing. You're sure it's going to be a bust?"

Jim's frustration was clearly evident. "Daric Slater and his crew are really on the ball, but nobody is listening to him. He thinks we'll be detected on the approach but Wildes has this genius plan to "sneak up on them" from the dark side of the moon."

"_Sneak? _In a B-class Battle Destroyer?" Race was suddenly reminded of the hippopotamuses' dance of _Swan Lake_ from that old 20th Century cartoon, _Fantasia._ A B-class Battle Destroyer would be just about as inconspicuous.

Jim shrugged, but despite his pessimistic attitude, he couldn't disguise the faint flare of hope in his eyes. Race signed off the call, feeling slightly guilty about his own ebullient mood, remembering all to well the conversation he and Jim had had with another close acquaintance, Saran Van den Mikhail of High House Syal, Viceroy of Olban, favourite nephew of Matriarch Madjhuri Syal, and High Commissioner of the LEO Commission.

"High Commissioner" was one of those titles that sounded slightly less grand than Admiral or General; the reality was far different. The High Commissioner answered directly and only to the Intergalactic Federation President, ruling absolutely over all IFP police, judiciary, legal, national guard units and so forth, outranking all everyone with the exceptions of the Lord High Admiral of the IFP Admiralty, the Chairman of the IFP Joint Chiefs of Staff and the IFP Prime Minister, who alone were his equals in rank. Saran was the youngest person ever to hold the office, but while acknowledged widely as "brilliant" and "incisive", he was about the only person that could out-Ellison Ellison. Icy, detached, bleak, he had no room for any emotion. He too was a powerful Sentinel, but ruthlessly controlled his senses by suppressants and sheer willpower, having no time to "waste" on Guide searches. Privately, Race had considered it a good thing, for he'd have pitied the Guide bonded to the barren, emotional desert that was Saran Van den Mikhail.

Unfortunately, for all his brutal bluntness, Saran had accurately pointed out the dangers of Jim pinning all his hopes on Leo Kessler's "Dark Guide", "'This man was captured by Alexandra Barnes, a lady whose peccadilloes we are all too familiar with,'" Saran had pointed out ruthlessly in his dry, cool manner, "'and thus spent months being subjected to almost daily mental cruelty, physical torture and sexual abuse that _has_ to have left him at the very least severely traumatised. Even if he really is a genuine "Dark Guide", he's of absolutely no use to you if he's a basket case.' "

After that conversation Jim had done a little research, contacting therapists and counsellors; Race had seen the grim results. The problems enunciated by the psycho-whatever professionals had been endless: eating disorders such as anorexia/bulimia; manic depression; suicidal tendencies and self-mutilation had topped the list, followed by obsessive-compulsive mania; phobias; alcoholism and/or drug addiction; insomnia; night terrors and anxiety attacks. To ice the cake they had also pointed out the possibility of either extreme sexual promiscuity – particularly gravitating towards physically and/or sexually abusive partners because he was "unworthy" of a decent person – or extreme suppression of his sexuality to the point where he could not cope with the intimate, albeit non-sexual, nature of bonding.

Still, Jim hoped, and Race couldn't blame him, he admitted as he dressed and hurried up the corridors. He, Saran and Jim were all several years older than was normal for Sentinels to bond, yet he had found his prize! His face insisted on grinning again and this time Race let his happiness out to play. This morning, Race had been awoken by the heady scent of musk, so powerful as to be almost intoxicating. Gage himself had awoken definitely grumpy. Of equal import besides this sudden mood shift from silent stubbornness was the fact that Butler's body temperature had risen by two degrees. He was just entering the first stages of bonding heat – slightly elevated body temperature and irrational irritability. Over the next forty-eight to sixty hours, depending on how pig-headed he was, he would swing between lethargy and irritation, his body temperature would also rise by another few degrees, then, _whoom!_ in the space of moments he would go into full bonding heat, and then he would no longer resist the bonding. Race found that he was humming to himself and he fancied that he could faintly hear the approving growl of a leopard….

_**Right about now**_**….**

Race dropped the coffee in shock as the leopard appeared right in the middle of the break room, roaring in fury. Simultaneously, a klaxon howled throughout the building.

He had no memory of racing back to the cell to find the door open and his Guide gone. But the scent trail left was as visible to Race as glowing scarlet thread, and he ran on, out into the huge solar where you could sit and watch the double suns rise. Out through the clear plexi-glas dome he could see a pyjama clad figure making its way quickly but surely towards the central city. Of more immediate import however was the much closer figure of Leo Kessler leaning a tranquilliser rifle through an open pane, lining it on Butler's back.

Race's bellow startled everyone, Kessler jerking the rifle up and sending the trank harmlessly away. The man spun around and, for a split second, an almost inhuman rage and hatred twisted his fast, before confused protest masked it. "Why did you…?"

"He could have fallen to his death!" Race rebuked savagely, his mind whirling at the speed of a battle computer. His wily Guide would be caught with guile, not force, guile and his own overriding instincts, unless Race's nostrils lied.

Grabbing the small, heavy round metal disc that was handed to him, he moved forward and eased out of the window until he was on the domed roofs also, ordering everyone to stay inside, then he set off in pursuit.

Gage risked a glance behind and saw a familiar figure some way behind him. He was coming nearer, but Gage still had a considerable distance advantage, one that he could utilise more if he could pull himself together. He paused briefly against one of the domes, dragging air into his heaving lungs, wiping away the sweat across his brow. Damn, he thought he was fitter than this, he was panting like a dog under a summer sun and sweat dripped off him. (_I am definitely going to work out more after this_), he promised as he began to pick his way along again, determinedly not looking back.

Race moved as quickly but safely as possible into position, his nose almost seared with the aroma drifting to it. Gage was in full bonding heat, Race could literally _taste_ him on the air, but without the suppressants to mask it, Gage could not be allowed to reach the central city area. Scent of a Guide in full bonding heat would draw Sentinels from ten blocks in all directions, and the one that managed to catch him would bond with him by brute force – "mind-rape" - as the ancient instincts inevitably kicked in when he or she faced off so many other challengers who would snatch the Guide away if he was not Bonded immediately upon capture. Fortunately Gage was not watching him, so he quickly ran the portable holo-scanner over his body, then ducked behind a support pillar and programmed it.

Gage moved carefully, for these domes had tiles not plexi-glas and were therefore wet and slippery –

"_Ahh!"_

The choked off cry had him whirling round in time to see his pursuer slip down a dome, but Race managed to come to a jerking halt at the supporting ledge of a roof. As Gage watched, the other man managed to get to a sitting position, but no way was he going to make it back up the smooth domed surface to the workman's catwalk without assistance. Gage turned forward again, but only took two steps onwards before, almost involuntarily, he looked back. Race was standing, leaning against the dome, but he could get no purchase on the plexi-glas. True, the Dark Angel appeared uninjured, however, the fall had been considerable.

If he turned his head he could hear the dull roar of freedom in the everyday sounds of the central city, where not even Race Keegan's Sentinel abilities could track him, not amongst the teeming billions there. Conscience however, was awake and clearing its throat meaningfully. Gage vacillated uncertainly. On only his third ever archaeological dig, a student volunteer, only two years older than he himself, had fallen six feet down a trench onto some rare stone carving artefacts protruding out of the soil. With no apparent injuries, the student was hauled out with a scolding for the damage he might have caused. Naturally cheery, the student had soon regained his bounce except for not eating dinner as he felt a "bit queasy". The next morning he was dead in his bunk after his unsuspected internal injuries killed him as he slept; the fact that Keegan looked fine meant zilch.

Assessing the situation, Gage began to move back along the catwalk. Perhaps because of some "Sentinel prerogative", Race was his only pursuer and the blobs of watching faces he could barely see were far too far away to catch up with them. As he expected, the catwalk had thin loops of climbing cord attached at regular intervals, to allow the repairers to move up and down the domes without having to build a maze of catwalks to take them there. He could throw one down to Keegan and still be long gone by the time the Dark Angel reached the catwalk.

Coming to the appropriate section, Gage loosened the cord and threw the free end down over the rail, watching it arc slowly through the air, _slap against the dome roof as it passed straight through Race Keegan's body!_

Scrunched into a ball under the catwalk's thick support prop, barely breathing, Race had moved with the stalking grace of a leopard as the slow footsteps passed over his position, up and sliding between the rails as Gage threw the rope. The younger man had only time to glimpse a big black flicker out of his peripheral vision before he was suddenly grabbed in a bear-hug, pulled back against a torso as two arms wrapped tightly round his front, pinning his arms to his sides. Before Gage could even tense up from the attack, Race bent his head and bit him, hard, at the precise nape of his neck.

Butler's whole body jerked, and he uttered a high keen that electrified the hair on Race's body before he suddenly slumped in his captor's grasp. Switching off the holo-scanner and re-pocketing it, Race held onto Butler with one arm. Ignoring dignity for the practicality of a "fireman's lift", Race began to hurry back with his Guide's limp form over one shoulder, fighting valiantly against the Sentinel who was screaming with hunger. Biting like that at the nape when the Guide was in bonding heat had sent Gage into temporary "sensory shock", a short-lived daze, almost catatonic. It had also nearly unleashed the Sentinel; Race expended every ounce of will to stop himself from simply slumping to the catwalk and bonding immediately.

The ugly snarls issuing from Keegan's throat were enough to keep the most insensitive away, though Leo Kessler remained slightly too close, the part of the brain that was still clinging to the analytical Keegan noting his too avid eyes. Knowing his control was fading rapidly, Race slid Gage off his shoulder; already the man was beginning to blink and shake his head, although completely pliant as Race plastered him to his side, the pair "running" in a sort of drunken shuffle-stumble back from the solar to Keegan's suite, along tactfully deserted corridors.

Shoving the still out-of-it empath into the bonding suite, Race slammed the door and threw the bolts, then whirled back to where Gage, swaying from side to side, stood in the middle of the room, blinking fuzzily. Twin, urgent growls snapped Race's head around; on the floor near the door, his leopard stood guard with the smaller, golden feline next to it. With an answering, silent roar of intent, the Sentinel came out to play. Scooping up his Guide like a babe in arms, he deposited his prize on the huge cushions and pillows, tugging them around to create a secure nest. Then he pounced.

Pinning his Guide to the divan, the Sentinel gave a low, rumbling growl as he buried his face in the juncture of his Guide's neck at the shoulder and inhaled his scent deeply. Heat of bonding was pouring of his Guide and the sweet musk was cloying. Sliding his fingers through His Guide's fringe, he tightened them in the scalp, tilting Gage's head back and exposing his throat.

Lowering his head, Race nipped the vulnerable flesh in the dip at the base of his throat, and was instantly rewarded; with a low moan of delight, Gage raised his hands to clamp the top of Race's arms at the shoulder, not pushing him away but pulling him closer. The Sentinel paused momentarily in irritation at the coarse, rough cloth that separated his Guide from him. One hand still locked in his Guide's hair, the other grasped material and jerked once, brutally, discarding the ripped shreds with a careless toss of one hand. Now he pinned the Guide down totally, locking his own gaze with the dazed, huge eyes, the pupils totally dilated. Gage's barriers were totally down, the only thing protecting him from the emotions of the city's billions of citizens was his Sentinel.

The brilliant orange of Race's mind pushed forward, meeting and overlaying the iridescent green of Gage's personality. _This_ was the true Bonding: exchanging memories, emotions, thoughts and knowledge, meshing together, interlocking irreversibly in the split-second between one heartbeat and the next. From now on, no matter where they were in the universe, neither man would ever be alone, for the other half of them would only ever be a thought away.

The Guide uttered a gasp of pain as new neural pathways were forged, his mind stretched like a strained muscle being reintroduced to exercise. Instantly the Sentinel began to croon wordlessly, petting and soothing. Orange pushed firmly but gently, not crushing the green or obliterating it, but slowly the two seeped together, surging down the pathways into the very core of both of them. At Gage's core, something shifted, and he released the pheromones of Bonding; Race inhaled the scent, imprinting it on his senses, his brain chemistry irrevocably altering. _MINE!_

The Sentinel buried his nose in his Guide's hair, stroking the silken strands and nuzzling, before moving to his Guide's face, rubbing his thumb across a cheek before lowering his head again to the throat, growling in pleasure as he elicited little yips of delight by gently biting down, marking his possession. Hypersensitive senses of touch, taste and scent activated as Race "mapped" his Guide: touching, nuzzling, sniffing, tasting. His Guide squirmed under him, growling, also trying to do his own mapping, but the Sentinel pinned him firmly – the Guide must be submissive. He ran his fingers along one collarbone, down a strong, tanned arm to the wrist, rubbing his thumb in the soft palm and over the work-callused fingers, lightly stroking the skin over the rapidly beating pulse-points at the wrist. He repeated the gesture with the other arm, but this time, he stroked from shoulder to wrist more firmly, growling as his heightened touch detected old healing of two breaks. His Guide must be protected.

He worked his way down the torso, revelling in the heat radiating from his now obediently quiescent Guide, nipping the smooth flesh, pleased at the shivers of sensation it sent through his Guide. Below one nipple was a horizontal, smooth cut that the "Dark Angel" identified as "knife" and he growled again. He traced the ribs, carefully, noting the two old breaks, plus the texture of the muscles, hearing the faintest capillaries sending blood to vital organs, the crowning _dub-dub-dub_ of his Guide's heart. A Sentinel used his Guide's body as a baseline against which all other sensory input was measured; the bonding constantly re-affirmed that sensory baseline as the Guide's scent, taste and vital signs were imprinted on the Sentinel.

A round puckered hole near the abdomen at about the site of the appendix was identified by questing fingers as a bullet hole, and the Sentinel drew back teeth in a soundless snarl. His Guide was entirely too occupied in digging up dirt to look after himself; that would change. _Protect the Guide_. Carefully, he examined his Guide intimately, pleased when Gage, understanding there was no sexual intent, did not flinch away, but murmured reassurance, moving a hand to stroke his Sentinel's hair.

Abruptly there was a rumbling, happy growl right next to the Sentinel's ear, and he glanced up to see the leopard poking its face over the barrier cushions. At the same time, his hand brushed over four old scars, deep, parallel grooves that ran diagonally down Gage's hip from right to left, starting at the juncture at the top of the leg, where the fleshier inner thigh met the genitals, down to below his hip bone on the outer thigh towards the knee. Race traced them with his fingers, anxiously, they were very deep, the healed skin over them thick and coarse. With a small sound, Gage covered the restless stroking hand with his own, locking eyes with his Sentinel.

Race received a blurred sequence of memories, still jarring because of the newness of their bond. A much younger Gage, with a half-glimpsed other youth, skinny, with long curly-brown hair, were both perched precariously up a large tree somewhere in the African veldt. Race just had time to subconsciously register that the other youth was also a powerful empath when a violent impact shook the tree. An enraged rhinoceros was charging it again and again, butting the base powerfully. Gage tried to scramble higher and with an enraged yowl, the half-grown leopard cub that had taken refuge in the top-most branches swiped out at the intruder with one paw, slicing through cloth and flesh. The image disappeared, but Race continued to croon wordlessly, the Sentinel growling in atavistic delight that his spirit animal guide had branded his real Guide. He moved on, down the legs, to the toes, then back up again, no centimetre of skin missed in the bonding. Finally, he moved carefully to completely cover his Guide's body with his own larger one, instinctively using himself as a shield against any possible danger. "Claimed and marked, Guide." He rasped the ancient ritual.

"Claimed and marked, Sentinel." Gage returned the vow.

Their eyes locked and the Sentinel allowed himself to be pulled in, to drown in the cocooning warmth and bliss of union with another soul…

**Rainier University, shortly after Jim Ellison's Search…**

Blair hurried away from Chancellor Hammond. Chancellor Edwards had hated him for not having the right social pedigree or affluent blue-rinse parents, his Jewish heritage and his long-haired neo-hippie style. She used to stop him to harangue him. Chancellor Hammond was a genteelly clueless focus-group/think-tank type who had taken a maternal shine to him, so _she_ stopped him to gossip for ages. This morning he had already run overtime with his first lecture as students arriving late interrupted the class. Those students had been the ones conspicuous by their absence the instant the _USS Nimitz_ had blasted out of the sky.

Blair took the deserted stairs down to Artefact Storage Room 3, a.k.a. his office. No one used stairs anymore but the old buildings still had them as per fire regulations. Dr Wentworth, Dean of Anthropological Studies, was still a field-man at heart, spending most of his time finagling ways to go "observing" with students on digs; because of that his department was left to be run by his secretaries, Teaching Fellows and Teaching Assistants. Dean Edwards had been snidely responsible for his "temporary" office in ASR3, but Blair rapidly realised she'd done him a favour. He came and went as he pleased, unbothered by frequent visits from colleagues begging favours. It was ideal, especially for its current use.

Entering, he threw the bolts, dumping his stuff on the desk. The old waste disposal units were larger than the current safer models, so he was able to haul up the plastic wrapped body of Holtz and ease it inside, letting go and hearing the deep hum as the unit vaporised the corpse. Acting quickly but carefully, he micro cleaned the entire room, including himself, aware that musty books and the general entropy that always seemed to be going on would eradicate any trace of Holtz ever being there. His usual smiling and ebullient face was grim as he sat at his desk. He'd had no suspicions until purely by chance, going out of his way to purchase his favourite herbal tea, he saw Holtz holding court at an exclusive eatery in the most expensive tourist area, something that should have been an annual treat on his salary, yet from his attitude, it was obvious that Holtz was a frequent, big spending customer.

Blair's investigations had turned up exactly what he expected. Blair the man hated these situations, so the Dark Guide had simply taken charge. A stiletto inserted at an angle between the third and fifth ribs _cannot avoid _striking the heart. Holtz was dead before he hit the floor and there was virtually no blood loss. Fortunately, Holtz had kept records of his payments and dealings with "The Man", the mysterious monster who was responsible for 90 of the illegal trade in kidnapped empaths to brothels, pornography rings or research labs. Blair's hope of an actual ID was dashed, but he was able to access all of Holtz accounts. Carefully he transferred the money to various charities, including the university, and the highly secret fund administered by Simon Banks as co-ordinator of Cascade Sanctuary, laying a trail to make it look as if Holtz was a greedy embezzler fled to live the high life in the sun.

Working with even greater patience, he had removed the list of empaths that Holtz had identified – over two hundred of them, with names, holographs, addresses and times when they would be most vulnerable to capture. All those who had "disappeared" during Ellison's Search were on the list, but Blair was not. Every instinct he possessed had always screamed to flee, but rationality won out. Disappearance marked you out to anyone with the slightest intelligence, so Blair had had to stay put and hope that his suppressants worked, even if he had to keep upping the dosage frequently. Certainly Chancellor Edwards would have wasted no time in pointing him out and then gleefully watching him be dragged off, to be forcibly bonded with some Neanderthal military goon.

Destroying the identifying parts of the lists, he had sent details of the buyers for the empaths using the encrypted tight-beam that Trey had set up for him, even though using it worried him. The tight-beam was a bio-technical invention, and part of the biology involved using the creator's DNA. Should Blair ever be captured and be unable to destroy the tight-beam, the DNA would lead them straight to his friend. But Trey had insisted and despite him being the quietest and most self-effacing of the "Terrible Trio", he in fact ruled them. Gage had not replied, but this didn't bother him, for Gage was with archaeology what Blair was with anthropology – give either something fascinating to study and you could have marched right past them with a brass band and seven naked dancing girls and they wouldn't have noticed. He also sent a list of the "buyers" to Simon, knowing it would be sent immediately to Saran Van den Mikhail, the LEO High Commissioner. Van Den Mikhail might eschew having his own Guide, but he was merciless in crushing those that abused them. Over a dozen empath-abusing prostitution rackets, pornography rings and research labs had been smashed under his power, their overseers now doomed to life forever on the fog-shrouded, rain-lashed prison planet of Styx. But even as he hurried to his next class, he vowed to himself that one day they _would_ find The Man, and they would destroy him….

**The morning after the night before…**

Gage's neck itched, and he blinked sleepily as the irritation forced him to abandon Morpheus' embrace. He was also very hot and cuddled against something big, warm and ..._snoring?_

Now fully awake, he blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes. He was tucked against the large frame of Race Keegan, who slumbered beside him, one arm across Gage's chest, one tree-trunk thigh thrown across his lower torso. With digital clarity, the events of the previous twenty-four hours came back to him, but Gage's bladder was having a more immediate crisis.

Slowly he eased out from next to Race, moving a hand to stroke the other's hair as instantly the Sentinel frowned, twitching anxiously; under his ministration the Sentinel settled back down. Gage's skin tingled and looking down he saw the bites and scratches he had expected, but Race's flesh was equally as marked – the Guide had claimed the Sentinel as much as the other way round.

Heeding his insistent bladder, Gage padded to the en suite bathroom of the bonding suite and relieved himself. Going to the washbasin, the mystery of the itching was instantly solved when he looked in the mirror. Around his neck just below his Adam's apple was a very thin, multi-coloured tattoo that incorporated the designs of Race's own, but which was unique to Gage as his Guide. Usually Guides were given temporary collars and taken to a professional body artist, but his Sentinel was obviously far too impatient and had been busy while his exhausted Guide slept! Strangely, Gage felt no resentment and even a sneaky contentment at the flaunted branding of himself.

Then he looked at the wall clock, which also showed the date. Closing his eyes, he ground his teeth and mentally exhausted every expletive he knew, including those in languages extinct for millennia.

After possibly the fastest shower in history, he stalked out of the bathroom ignoring his nudity, furiously towelling his hair. Now awake, Race watched his progress across the room with lazy satisfaction, a smile of unashamedly smug satisfaction curving his lips. Instead of the pyjamas, Gage's laundered clothing and holdall had been placed there, near Race's own freshly laundered apparel. Studiously ignoring the Sentinel, Gage pulled on his socks, pants and boots, tying the laces with considerably more force than necessary, imagining them tightening around a certain person's blasted neck!

He caught and flicked on his pager as it fell from his shirt pocket and as he expected it began to shrill with strident alarm. Again disregarding the fact that Race was blatantly eavesdropping in violation of a whole raft of privacy laws, Gage answered it, putting it to his ear with one hand as he pulled his T-shirt and baggy over shirt on with one hand.

"Hello – Morris – yeah, Morris. Morris – yeah, Morris." Holding the pager away slightly as his second in command continued his semi-hysteric rant, he slid that arm into his T-shirt and then his shirt, placing the pager back to his ear as Morris wound down. "Look, I'm on way, okay. Yeah – _I know, Morris_." He glanced at the smirking Sentinel. "Uh, um, something came up – I'll tell you when I see you. Yeah, yeah, yes, Morris. Calm down, man!" He ended the call ruefully; Morris was a heart attack waiting to happen.

"Problem with the "new dig"?" Race asked innocently, having picked that much up from the hysterics.

"No, I'll handle it when I get there." Gage ran harassed fingers through his hair as he tossed his pager into his holdall.

Once again that superior smirk drifted across Race's features. _Mine, all mine_. "What about me, Guide?" he challenged softly.

Gage didn't have time for a pissing contest with Race Keegan; he was the guy's Guide – Keegan one, Butler nil; now he had more important things to do to pander even further to the SOB's ego. Exasperated beyond caution, he yanked up the holdall and walked towards the door, tossing flippantly over his shoulder, "I'll send you a postcard!"

To be continued…

© 2001, C. D. Stewart


	2. Chapter 3 & 4

_Please see disclaimers, notes, et cetera, for Chapters I-II. NB – Harness bull – colloquialism for uniformed police officer – of either gender – as opposed to plainclothes officer. This term is exclusive to the USA and is not used in Britain. _

Chapter III – Digging Up Quite A Bit _More_ Than Dirt Major Crimes Unit, Cascade PD Central Precinct, Cascade Enclave, Earth… 

Simon signed again wearily as Rhonda stuck her head around the door and informed him curtly, "He's here!" Her tone blatantly showed her dislike of the new arrival.

Rising from behind his desk, Simon went to meet his new detective. The trouble was, many people wanted the _benefits_ of the Police Department Simon Banks had re-created virtually single-handed without wanting to make the _effort_ that went on behind the scenes. The "open secret" that Cascade was also a Sanctuary for Wild Empaths made people even more wary. Other, newer Police Departments praised pioneering Cascade to the hilt, but getting any officer with experience, as opposed to being fresh from the LEO Academy, to actually transfer here and work was like finding hen's teeth. Bryn Rafe, Henri Brown and Joel Taggart helped out to the max, but Simon was acutely aware of how little personal time they had left after pandering to his "freak-loving" ways. Henri Brown's last girlfriend had ditched him, what, eight months ago, due to the fact that Henri was never around. Simon was well aware that his own role in the Cascade PD and Sanctuary had been heavily responsible for the breakdown of his marriage and the fact that Darryl had chosen to live on Halfway Space Station with his mother. Joel's marriage was still rock solid, but largely because Mavis Taggart would mother the whole world given half the chance and she had become as deeply involved in the "Cascade conspiracy" to provide Sanctuary as her husband. That Washington PD had been only too glad to relinquish a senior detective on permanent transfer had been a godsend, but getting him here had been a bureaucratic "snafu" of epic proportions.

James Ellison stood before the check-in desk, exuding negative vibes for all he was worth. This time he had reverted to his natural hair and eye colour, and his torso bore no padding. He had intended to return to Cascade PD and investigate that tantalising scent as soon as possible, but finding that a new detective with a similar name to himself was due to transfer into Cascade PD had been like a sign. He had promptly requested permission of his CO to change his Dark Angel status to "inactive" - mandatory for long-term deep cover missions - and upon receiving permission, put this plan into motion.

The real Detective James Philip Ellis, a beefy, butch giant, had been intercepted en route from Washington DC, and offered a choice. Turning down the offer meant that High House Ellison lawyers would be examining just how he got such a good rate of convictions. Ellis was now very happily "working" as a security guard at Stephen Ellison's retreat on Eden – the most heavily defended planet in the universe bar Federation – with more money than he could have otherwise legitimately earned in several lifetimes.

The computer back-trail had been easy to set up and failsafe measures were in place. Any information sent from Cascade to Washington would arrive there with the real James Ellis's holograph, DNA profile, voiceprint and brainwave engram; anything sent to Cascade from Washington would arrive here with James Ellison's same details on under his fake Ellis ID.

Simon mentally groaned. Ellis looked every bit the macho hard-ass Captain Wells had admitted him to be. Noting the approach of the Captain, Jim deepened the scowl on his face and stepped up to the admission desk. "Ellis," he grunted, placing an expression of disdain on his features, "transferred from DC to this…rathole."

Sentinel Bonding Suite, a few days prior to this… 

_Being pinned back against a wall by a naked man when you are fully clothed is something that should be amusing for you and embarrassing for him_, Gage managed to think with just a tinge of hysteria. The holdall was plucked from his hand and tossed casually aside despite its weight. Two shovel-like hands on either side his head trapped his line of sight directly into those storm-grey eyes that were now as cold as an arctic tundra in deep winter. Race's voice was low, calm, and _very, very_ deadly, "If you ever run from me, I will flay you to within an inch of your life until you beg me for mercy."

Gage lowered his eyes; now was _not_ the time to defy his Sentinel and try to assert independence. Apparently taking this as a gesture of submission, Race turned and walked gracefully into the bathroom, the shower coming on a second later. For a moment Gage hesitated. Pride was prodding, but common sense and a healthy dose of self-preservation hit the brakes. Race Keegan was a Dark Angel, and would be ruthless in his punishment. Deciding that the best thing to do was nothing, he remained where he was.

Less than a minute later, Race re-emerged, damp-haired, and began to pull on his own laundered all-black "intimidation special" garb with complete disregard for his nudity as Gage stewed in silence, a definite look of approval for his Guide obediently staying where he was told. "Is this "dig" that important?"

"It's my life!" Retorted Gage without thinking and instantly cursed his bitter tongue as he saw Race's eyes darken dangerously; to _ever_ give your Sentinel any sort of rival was the biggest no-no in the "Guide's Guide to Self-Survival".

As he pulled on his T-shirt, momentarily hiding his face, Race mentally sped through his options. The Sentinel was already screaming with jealousy. No way was a pastime like digging in the dirt for old bones going to supersede his place as the centre of his Guide's universe. Ancient instincts jumped up and down, howling, demanding that he pin his recalcitrant Guide to his furs until he acknowledged that only his Sentinel mattered in this world. Race-the-man firmly shushed the Sentinel as he finished dressing and turned to Gage, seeing the defiant tension in the lines of his body. He'd done the research on his Guide over the past days while waiting for him to come into bonding heat. Gage was widely acknowledged as a brilliant and highly dedicated archaeologist who clearly loved his career. Taking that away when they were so newly bonded would just increase Gage's already extremely high level of resentment against him. He smiled. The Sentinel would lure his Guide into submission with honey, not vinegar. "When do we go?"

Gage blinked at this serene attitude, having expected a ferocious explosion of possessive declamations. "Go?"

"To this dig thing?"

"I should have been there yesterday," Gage admitted, still thrown by Race's calm acceptance, "um, but, don't you have," he waved a hand vaguely, "Dark Angel stuff?"

"I'm not a Dark Angel." Race corrected him.

"Huh?"

Suddenly adopting a tone of languid ennui, Race drawled, "I'm Race Keegan, of Oligarchy Lesser House Keegan, wealthy dilettante and playboy. I do whatever amuses me, and right now, archaeology amuses me."

For the first time a genuine smile tinged Gage's face at Race's high class, slow drawl. "Dilettante?"

"Absolutely. As far as 99.9 of the Inhabited Galaxies are aware, Race Keegan is a party animal, who flits from _soiree_ to high to society party like a butterfly, spending his enormous wealth on frippery and fashion, who wouldn't know a phase rifle or a disruptor from a cabbage." He injected a tone of warning into the last part, but Gage wasn't slow on the uptake.

"Right, cabbage. Got it."

"Good." Handing him back his holdall, Race ushered his Guide out of the door. "Let's get going."

Cascade Major Crimes Unit, a few days later… 

"Well, if it ain't slick!"

The derisive tone carried easily to Jim's Sentinel ears, even though he was having to be careful about how far up he dialled up his senses since he didn't want to zone or tip off Major Crimes personnel, none of whom were blind or stupid. Once again that tantalising scent drifted to his nostrils, albeit almost smothered by the rank chemical stench of suppressants. _Bryn Rafe_. Seeing a golden opportunity for James Ellis to "unclench", he moved.

Stalking forward through the parking garage, keeping to the shadows, he saw the tableau in front of him. The young detective had obviously just returned from Rainier University for the Dark Guide's faint scent was still fresh, but was being barracked by Sergeant Henman. A paunchy, pasty middle-aged uniform cop, Henman had taken a dislike to what he saw as an "uppity" kid with a superiority complex, taking Rafe's neatness of dress and stylish grooming as some sort of personal affront. Jim had quickly realised that Rafe was a genuinely nice, modest youth with no pretentiousness whatsoever. However, he did lack confidence, so let himself by taunted by the older, "more experienced" Henman instead of getting in the bully's face or enlisting the aid of his very protective partner, Henri Brown, whose buff physique and powerful fists were a good deterrent.

Strolling forward as if he was just happening past, Jim stopped and growled, "What's happening here?"

Henman smirked. "Just chatting, weren't we, Rafe?"

The young detective closely examined his shoes and mumbled an affirmative.

"Is that a fact?" Jim raised an eyebrow and there was a pregnant pause. "Don't let me keep you, Sergeant."

Looking irritated and faintly uncertain, Henman and his three cronies sidled away. Shooting Jim a weak smile, Rafe began to hurry towards the elevators, twitching nervously when Jim fell into step beside them. The doors opened as they approached and Henri Brown's frowning face lit on them. Halting his motion to step out, he remained inside as they stepped in. "Major Crime." Jim ordered.

"Where you been, man, you're late?" Henri asked his partner.

"Henman was heckling him." Jim cut across any answer the younger man gave as Rafe's heart spiked, indicating an imminent lie.

"_What?"_

Rafe shot Jim a furious look. "H., man, chill, it's nothing…."

"There were four of them surrounding him like jackals, with mega-mouth Henman sounding forth," Jim contradicted.

Henri Brown's black skin disguised it, otherwise Jim knew he'd have been beetroot with fury, as it was he could see murder in the brown eyes, usually as soft as melted chocolate, now hard, cold pebbles. "Whyinhell didn't you _tell_ me!" He scolded Rafe.

Rafe flushed, "I don't need you to hold my hand, H.," he shot back, embarrassed. "Henman is just – "

"Green." Jim interjected

Both men turned to look at him. "Henman is so eaten up with envy and jealousy he ought to be emerald-coloured by now, Rafe." Jim explained. "He knows that you manage to be twice the detective he'll ever be just by getting out of bed in the morning." The elevator doors pinged and opened onto Major Crime as they stared at him. "Next time, squash him like a bug," was Jim's parting advice as he strolled to the break room for some privacy in controlling his reaction to that heady scent he'd been inhaling with Rafe so close to him.

An hour later, he mysteriously got a caramel-glazed custard doughnut with his coffee. Two hours later, his hunch that he had done the right thing was proven when Henri Brown came and personally thanked him for not only helping Rafe out, but bolstering his self-esteem. "No problem," he assured the grunge-dressed detective, "he's a good kid, he'll go far with the right kind of help, which you're giving him."

The rumour that deep, deep down inside Jim Ellis there was actually a human being struggling valiantly against the odds to get out was all over the building by five o'clock. Jim sighed contentedly to himself as he left for the day. Coming down with a log-sized chip on his shoulder was not his first choice of infiltration technique, but for Ellis to have arrived in Cascade with such a radical personality shift from universally agreed "bolshy hard-ass" to actual human would have been too suspicious. Relaxing the "mean mother" persona gradually, yet as fast as inconspicuously possible, was his initial goal, followed by getting Major Crime personnel, particularly Rafe, to trust him. He had made a giant stride today with his first effort.

Which was probably why he felt slightly less grim as he headed for Internal Affairs. Simon had encouraged him to come in early and leave at five for his "first" few shifts, but Jim knew that this was to get him out of the way while Simon _et al_ did their Sanctuary work with wild empaths. Discreetly sensory scanning the building from a distance after he had "left" had quickly established that all Major Crime personnel and a large portion of the rest of the building were in on the Underground Railroad. As he watched thin, nervous figures sidle into the precinct, catching waves of their scent with the telltale "musk" signature of pheromones - though none was the scent of he who Jim was convinced was the Dark Guide - Jim had felt an irrational surge of anger. Thanks to monsters like Alex Barnes and meddlers like Professor Langehur, the disproportionate Sentinel/Guide ratio had led to this sorry state of affairs where a Sentinel had to hunt down his Guide and force him into bonding heat and where empaths went to great lengths to hide their abilities. It shouldn't be this way.

Entering the Internal Affairs building across from Cascade PD, Simon Banks having stopped short of sharing his precinct, Jim asked to see Captain E. V. Hunter. The desk sergeant gave him a "haven't-we-met-before" look and let him through. Jim bit back a smile. The first time he had met his half-brother, they had been as alike as twins; immediately after, Hunter had had cosmetic facial readjustment. Now the likeness between them still close enough to strike a chord of immediate recognition with people, but only when they were side by side was their strong resemblance apparent. Seeing that Hunter's secretary had momentarily left her position, he simply knocked and opened the door to his half-brother's office. "Evening, Hunter."

Looking up at the only name he acknowledged, Hunter raised an eyebrow at the sight of his half-brother standing before him in smart-casuals and wearing a detective's shield. "Going down in the world?" He asked casually.

Jim closed the door. "I'm in deep-cover. I decided to check in just in case you came over one day and enquired what your baby bro' _James Ellison_ was doing in Cascade PD. It's Jim Ellis, by the way, transferred from Washington DC."

"And the real James Ellis is….?"

"Living in soporific luxury on Stephen's Eden estates." Jim supplied. "You can check if you don't believe me."

Apparently deciding to give Jim the benefit of the doubt and trust that he hadn't murdered the real Ellis and buried the body somewhere with Dark Angel ingenuity, Hunter asked, "So why are you here?"

"The Dark Guide is here."

Hunter blinked. Dark Guides had been pretty much debunked as "myths" along with Santa Claus until the late and totally unlamented lunatic Dark Sentinel Alexandra Barnes had captured a wild empath one. Her attempts to bond with the Guide had been futile, and the guy had eventually bashed her head in after she'd abused him one time too many. However, at least that situation had confirmed that there was a living Dark Guide out there, and since his half-brother was the only known living Dark Sentinel…."You do realise how unstable he could be?"

Jim nodded grimly, "I got the full lecture from Saran, with pictures. I know Barnes could have tortured him into serious mental illness, but, he's here, and I've got to try."

Hunter nodded, sympathising despite his many issues with the Ellison family. A Sentinel himself, he knew what it was like, that constant, underlying hunger. He'd thought long and hard about Simon Banks' offer to Captain Cascade's new IA Dept, aware that it could be his personal poisoned chalice. For a Bondless Sentinel, the fact that Cascade had a large population of wild empaths was in many ways like ordering an alcoholic not to drink then giving him the keys to every bar in the country. "Where, exactly?"

"Rainier, somewhere."

Hunter snorted. Rainier's population was several thousand students, coming from all corners of the Inhabited Galaxies like flotsam sucked into a whirlpool. Needle in a haystack didn't even begin to cover it. "Good luck," he muttered sarcastically.

"Thanks." Jim's tone was bland.

After a few minutes, they said goodbyes and Jim left, knowing his half-brother would not betray him. Ellison Vincent Hunter was often called "the Dark Side of the Force", but at his core was a wide band of honour and integrity. If he could help Jim claim his Dark Guide, even if just by doing nothing, he would.

LEO High Commissioner's Office… 

Sometimes even the most self-aware people couldn't look back and explain _why_ they did something even if their life depended on it. Saran Van den Mikhail vaguely realised he was about join that happy band. Possibly it was because he was frustrated after having to spend the day in a series of "top level" meetings which were basically forums for people who liked the sound of their own voice and those that could waffle for hours and say nothing, instead of actually doing – oh, say, _law enforcement_ work? Not that it showed. Saran was claimed by many to be a cyborg in disguise. His cool, diffident manner never changed regardless of provocation.

The red-flagged tight-beam however, got his immediate attention. He'd had them before, and they were red-flagged because they were untraceable – Saran had tried, and Saran was very good. Opening the message, he read the list of "buyers" for kidnapped empaths, then downloaded the evidence against them before making a call and mobilising the special units based in the LEO Commission itself. Despite having no Guide, nor any interest in one, Saran came down with utter ruthlessness against those who preyed on wild empaths. Tonight the buyers would find themselves in a whole new world, literally – the prison planet Styx. The tight-beam evidence of complicity satisfied all the stringent requirements of the Judicial Bypass Act, wherein those arrested with overwhelming evidence of guilt against them could be sentenced without trial.

He sent a summons to Chief Justice Aman. Her son, Jared Aman, had been a Sentinel police officer going slowly insane from Fincham Syndrome until he took part in one of Saran's raids that destroyed an empath pornography ring. Many such criminals were killed by Sentinel cops sent immediately into Blessed Protector mode by the despair, terror, and empathic "calls" for help blasted out by the captured empaths – Saran himself had to vigorously fight back the ferociously protective instincts. Jared Aman had zoned during the shoot-out, but despite being badly beaten, a wild empath, Tommy Osaki, had not simply fled but got Aman out of the lines of fire, bringing him back from the zone even as bullets and plasma fire impacted around the injured empath. Officer Aman was now a Bonded Sentinel and in no danger of insanity. Fortunately Osaki had been newly captured and only beaten, not raped, in an attempt to subjugate him, but he still had nightmares. Chief Justice Aman had made it plain that she would always be instantly available should Saran need her to deal with such cases in future.

At midnight the raids would round up the buyers, by dawn they would have been sentenced and on their way to life imprisonment – maximum penalty courtesy of Aman - on the prison planet Styx, branded with the indelible symbol of sex attackers. Other prisoners on Styx took a dim view of rapists, paedophiles and their ilk. The buyers would experience exactly what they had intended to put their victims through, only without the merciful, dulling haze provided by the illegal drugs that negated an empath's barriers – and made them highly suggestible.

The tight-beam _had_ been tampered with, as forensics had shown since the first one arrived. Identities of empaths who were to have been kidnapped and sold had been removed by an expert, the boffins had confessed to Saran. Nor had repeated tracing attempts proven successful, mainly because the tight-beam originated in Saran's home precinct – an impossibility. Saran gazed at the message, a never-before considered possibility popping up into his cerebellum. _His home precinct_.

Giving the LEO Commissioner a "home" precinct was just a PR exercise to give the rank-and-file the impression that he or she was of "us" not "them". Saran's home precinct was Halfway Space Station Central – HSS PD – and he'd been there only once in his teens just after his decision to forge a career in law enforcement. His mother, the Vicereine, had had a fit when her Body Heir informed her he had no intention of lazing around in soporific luxury with his billions of galacs until she finally shuffled off the mortal coil, since she had just entered her twelfth decade looking as lissom as a twenty-year old nymphet – he was after all, too much the brilliant, ambitious son she'd designed him to be – but _law enforcement_?

Having also inherited her steely determination and immovability, he'd persevered, and once accepting he would not be swayed, his mother had brought her own power solidly to bear on behalf of her firstborn, favourite child, to the extent that her sister the Matriarch Madjhuri Syal of High House Syal had _publicly_ approved of his career. Well aware that his connections had got him the LEO Commissioner post, Saran always gave 250 to the job, aware that while his peers and subordinates rated him the best Commissioner ever to have the position, his mother simply expected nothing less from her children, indeed more from her Body Heir and favourite. They did not have an easy relationship, for her cool, unemotional diffidence was a mirror image of his own, but Saran remembered once as a child seeing, after sneaking into her forbidden private suite, a holograph of his father, her first husband, next to the bed, an out-of-place personal memento in a place utterly devoid of sentimental trappings. Certainly Aleksandr had been the only one of his mother's husbands ever to be accorded the title of Viceroy Consort.

He stated the code that brought up his "home" precinct's personnel records. Based like so many on the Banks Model, HSS PD had a few minor alterations – there was no Major Crime Unit, instead just divisions – Narcotics, Homicide, Vice, Juvenile, Robbery – and two unique to space stations: Contraband and Station Traffic. At his order, the screen scrolled through the records of officers starting with the Captain of Police, through the Captains of each division, right down to the cadet patrolmen and women and civilian employees, just as Saran had done several times before, hoping for a give-away on someone's part.

But none stood out as being the "type" to be part of the Underground Railroad, which was where the tight-beam had originated. Somewhere in Cascade, the notorious Sanctuary, the tight-beam would have gone to Simon Banks of fame, probably bounced off a few other places to muddy the waters further, before landing at HSSC PD where it "pretended" to have originated before landing in his mailbox. Unfortunately, the tech guys had never been able to do anything more than establish that it was actually sent to HSSC from somewhere else despite appearing as if someone had sat down in that building and created it. What they did say was that at least for the first time, there would have had to have been someone on the inside at the HSSC Precinct to direct the tight-beam on.

But that didn't mean they were still there, or had been there more than once. Halfway Space Station, named for it's position half way between Earth and Mars, dated from the earliest days of colonisation and was still going strong, a venerable elder statesman amongst its peers and a tourist attraction in it's own right. Untold billions of people went through it daily, and many people were only temporary occupants. The "insider" could have been a temporary janitor, civilian employee, or even someone who got himself collared on a minor misdemeanour felony just long enough to get inside one of the departmental bullpens and do his thing. But what if Saran went in person? His Sentinel abilities might pick something up? It was the one thing he'd never even considered before, which was why it might just work…

_**Dark Angel HQ, meanwhile…**._

It had taken less than two hours to get Gage and Race ready to ship out, the Dark Angels being one of the most efficient organisations in the Inhabited Galaxies. Besides, the whole point was for the Dark Angel to lead an entirely different life, "stepping into" his mission then stepping out again unobserved. Gage in turn had long had experience of travelling with the bare minimum of gear. Finally the archaeologist grabbed his holdall and cast one last glance around the bonding suite to check he hadn't left anything.

"Do you want a new coat?" Race suddenly asked, harshly.

Thrown by the _non sequitur_ tossed into a conversation about shuttle flight times, Gage merely blinked. "Huh?"

Not really looking at him, Race waved a tense hand to his low-necked T-shirt, open collared over shirt and short leather jacket, none of which came close to concealing his neck. "A high collar coat, do you want one, for the tattoo?"

Gage gave him an unreadable look, then said firmly, "No, I don't."

Race relaxed as they left the bonding suite, smiling in relief, though he privately vowed that one day Gage would never even be able to give him so much as a glance he couldn't instantly interpret. It had been driving him crazy, wondering if Gage would want to hide the symbol of his bonded state; Race wanted to shout it from the roof-tops, which was why he had done the tattoo himself as his Guide slumbered in exhaustion rather than giving him a temporary collar and waiting a few days for a professional body artist.

Gage firmly squashed a tiny niggle of guilt at Race's pleased look. Yes, he would like to bundle up in the thickest scarf he could find, but he needed the tattoo highly visible. Anyone else from the Underground Railroad would take one look at it and know Gage had been compromised, so would be able to protect himself. At least he'd been able to delete the incriminating messages from his pager without Race realising they were anything more than Morris' twittering. Blair's tight-beam about the empath buyers had also gone, but he would have sent it to Van den Mikhail, who would wipe them out. The Underground Railroad had to be protected, and if doing that meant Gage Butler had to be humiliated by walking around like a prize bull just branded by his new owner, he would do that, for Blair, and Trey.

At least travel with Race Keegan the playboy was an eye-opener. "Luxury" didn't even begin to cover it; "opulence" was inadequate. The shuttle was grand enough, but the staterooms aboard the A-class Space Liner Byzantium were sybaritic.

Gage sank into his ankles in the carpet, and the chandeliers were made of diamonds, not crystal. The bathing suite sported a Jacuzzi you could have drowned a regiment in, with fittings made of gold. It took ten minutes to walk around the football field called a bed, covered in finest damask and overthrown with silken snowy furs. Good grief.

He didn't realise he'd spoken aloud until Race chuckled behind him. "A nice little place, isn't it?"

The trip was three days, most of which Gage spent in long conversations with Morris and others, sorting out the delays caused by his non-arrival, evading explaining the real reason behind his non-appearance. They'd see soon enough. Somewhat to Gage's surprise, Race hadn't bonded with him, although he always woke up cuddled next to his Sentinel, but Gage quickly figured it out. Race was waiting until they got to the dig – something that had become a threat in the jealous Sentinel's imagination. By bonding with Gage there, Race asserted his dominance and vanquished his "rival", as he thought. Newly bonded Sentinels and Guides bonded frequently during the first fortnight of their bond, and the abstinence on Race's part would only make the bonding more powerful, more intense the next time. Gage shivered involuntarily with mingled anticipation and trepidation – it would be almost as powerful as their initial bonding, and that had left him feeling branded to the bone.

A certain amount of time later, in a galaxy not too far away… 

For the first time in a long time, Saran had to exert just a little bit of effort in keeping his indifferent mask from slipping. He'd arrived, unannounced, at HSSC Precinct duty desk. With his uniform's high, stiff collar hiding his Body Heir tattoo, introducing himself simply as Saran Van den Mikhail and flashing his perfectly legitimate but unused detective's shield, he'd actually gotten to wander around the precinct for twenty whole minutes, having some very _enlightening_ chats with various of the other cops, before the Captain of Contraband – damn, sounded like a pirate in a Gilbert & Sullivan opera – passed by and suddenly recognised who exactly was sympathetically listening to two harness bulls explain just how the Station's Manager's budget cuts were crippling their ability to do their job properly.

Saran just wished he been able to take a picture of the panic on the Captain of Police's face when he came dashing down to greet him in the realisation that the LEO High Commissioner had had nearly half an hour of uncensored freedom wandering about the precinct talking to cops who told it like it was, not how it was in political fairy-land. Even as he sat ensconced with the Captain of Police in his very nicely appointed office, a fine cognac in one hand and an even finer cigar in the other, Saran's perfect memory made a mental note to try this approach again. People very rarely recognised even the most famous "celebrity" if they saw them out of context. The LEO Commissioner arrived in a stretch air-skiff surrounded by an entourage of flunkies, bodyguards and paparazzi, so no one had connected him with the quiet, tall "detective". The views and opinions he'd heard, even in only twenty minutes, were highly interesting, and he regarded the Captain critically. Pure politician, one of those smart ones who hadn't worked his way up through the ranks but sidled in at officer level, photogenic and always with the right sound-byte for the media, cutting budgets, keeping costs low and adept at fudging the statistics when people tried to look too closely at how those cuts and the bureaucracy prevented the police from doing their job. The Station Manager would also have to go, if what he'd heard a couple of grumbling harness bulls allege about the man's active interference in police matters, prompted by self-interest and politicking, was true. Abruptly, even over the aromatic, highly expensive cigar, an unpleasant chemical taint sent his nose hairs itching and his lips thinned in distaste. Taking another sip of brandy to rid himself of the taste, he tuned back in to what the captain of Police was nervously waffling on about, unaware of the detective who had unobtrusively slipped away from the bullpen outside.

Homicide Detective Trey Logan finally allowed himself to give way to his gibbering panic as he closed the door of the cubicle in the little used men's room in the basement. The low-key but definite empathic "marker" of a Bondless Sentinel had hit him as he was in the break room, trying to get the slowly dying coffee machine to work one last time. An empath's scent carried with it a "musk", an underlying scent signature that a Sentinel could detect from several miles away if need be. Empaths did not have the hyperactive senses of Sentinels, but they did have empathy, and in resonance to an empath's "musk", all Sentinels automatically and unconsciously broadcast a mental "signal" or "marker" that the empath's own mental power could detect. Only suppressant narcotics stopped either signal.

For an instant, Trey had genuinely thought he was going to have a heart attack as he peeked through the break room door and zeroed in immediately on a tall man casually wearing a detective shield, chatting to some uniformed officers from Station Traffic. The fact that the guy was really the Ultimate Boss, LEO Commissioner Saran Van den Mikhail, lessened his fear only slightly. At least he would leave and probably not return, but until the Captain had ushered him to his private office nervously, Trey was trapped – the break room had no other egress bar the door, and Trey's terror that Mikhail would hear his thundering heart had only spurred that organ to greater frantic activity.

Now as he sat on the toilet seat with the lid down, trying to calm his breathing, he blessed the cantankerous old vending machine and its furious din, which surely must have covered his frenetic bio-rhythms. Simultaneously, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he had his latest phial on him, ready to inject and that his scent was masked by the coffee machine, otherwise Mikhail would have detected the leaking musk. Taking a deep breath, he went out and splashed water on his face, before giving the man in the mirror a stern lecture. He had become complacent, shoddy with his shots, leaving it too long before increasing the dosage and even forgetting to keep checking that all his escape options were still open. Today he'd literally been trapped in a corner with no way out, and only sheer luck had saved him!

_**Rainier University, Cascade**…_

In the now deserted auditorium, the three freshman students surrounded Sandburg; with them a loose semi-circle in front and his desk behind, he had, in their eyes, nowhere to go. Blair eyed them calmly but with regret; throughout the Inhabited Galaxies there were still those who hated simply because of race or religion, colour and creed. Man had taken all his virtues into the stars, but sadly his vices as well. The future of humanity had become much more the political warring of Babylon 5 than the integrated, homogeneous harmony of Star Trek.

These three specimens were big, beefy, they thought they had him buffaloed as they sneered at the "bastard kike" who presumed to instruct his superiors. Blair Sandburg was regretful, but the Dark Guide firmly put him aside for the duration as he strolled out of his lair, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet and eyeing the three Neanderthals contemptuously –

The angry roar made the three snap their heads round with startled exclamations and instantly the Dark Guide was moving, all three put down with broken arm, wrist and elbow in a graceful ballet of lethal motion before they were even aware of what was happening. Not even breathing slightly heavier, the Dark Guide resumed his previous position in front of the desk. "Get out."

Whimpering, they clutched damaged limbs, somehow aware that they faced someone far more dangerous than Blair Sandburg, then scurried out, eyes flicking nervously for the now vanished _huge_ black panther that had roared at them. As the door swung shut on them, the angry rumble sounded again. Suddenly reasserting himself over the Dark Guide, Blair shuddered and swore vehemently.

_Not again, not ever again_. Beside the eerily blue-eyed panther that now sat, growling at him in front of the door, shadowy but definitely there, was the translucent form of a wolf. With a curse, Blair spun round the desk and wrenched open a desk drawer, hastily injecting himself with nearly a full phial of Rezadrin. The panther roared, lashing his tail, but both animals immediately faded into nothing, though the wolf managed to give him a look of reproachful reproof.

Tough! Trembling, Blair sat down. The first time he'd ever encountered a "real" spirit animal guide – now there was a contradiction in terms – a golden spotted jaguar, had been just days before Alex had found him and lured him into her machinations with his own empathic naïve curiosity. His idiocy had led to months of physical torture, mental cruelty and sexual abuse by the psychopathic woman. At first delighted to have a Dark Guide to play with, her inability to bond with him had driven her ever greater heights – or depths – of sadism.

Luckily the whole damn nightmare had occurred during summer recess, and he had excused his late return to work with the excuse of his mother Naomi – as excellent a specimen of health as ever there was – being seriously ill for by then his physical trauma had at least healed enough for him to function with disguising normalcy before his peers.

Alex had been unable to see the jaguar, but Blair had seen it daily as her prisoner/slave, pacing her apartment with roars of frustration and pain because it's human counterpart wouldn't acknowledge it. In the region of the jaguar's heart was a wound that would not heal, which bled copiously, and, so faded as to be little more than a faintly sketched outline, Blair had glimpsed the ghost of a Maine Moon cat.

Blair the man wanted to forget the months of living hell had ever happened, the Dark Guide didn't give a damn as long as the hell-bitch was dead, but Sandburg the scientist needed to know. It had been difficult to research without tipping his hand, but finally the pieces had been found, one by one. Only in the last century and a half had the IFP become a tiger with teeth, and even so many frontier worlds were still dangerous. Alex had grown up on a wild, woolly frontier planet so medical reports were sketchy at best, but she'd been perfectly normal until she displayed her first example of psychotic behaviour very suddenly three months after turning twelve. It had been Trey who'd done the digging, despite the cautions of Blair and Gage at arousing suspicion, and came up with the answer: her first episode of violent psychosis coincided with the Ursa Major Spaceport Disaster, wherein 7,832 lives were lost. Buried in the back-sheets of some cyberspace tabloid was the peculiar report of one of the victims, seven-year-old Katja Nirek, who suffered no physical injuries but became hysterical, screaming that she could " feel" the people burning, dying. She had collapsed unconscious and slipped into a coma, dying without regaining awareness nine days later.

Maine Moon cats had been discovered to have almost perfect "inner balance", able to detect flaws in a ship's drive that not even the most sensitive equipment could. Carefully and rigorously bred, Maine Moon cats inhabited every ship that could afford them, for they warned of lethal cracks and fissures in a ship's drive systems long before the most advanced testing equipment. Trey's discreet check revealed that Katja's family were long-time, celebrated breeders of Maine Moon cats. Back then, nobody would have thought to link Alex's suddenly aberrant behaviour with the loss of her genetically predestined Guide, and untreated, her condition had simply generated into full-blown mania.

Blair understood, but could not forgive. Alex had been evil – and more sane than not. She had inflicted pain for the pleasure it gave her, raped him and verbally taunted him for fun, all because he was a Dark Guide that refused to bond, even though she knew perfectly well it was a matter totally out of his control. A Guide-strength empath only went into bonding heat with a genetically compatible Sentinel, and Alex was, by then, far too damaged on too many levels to have been able to re-bond with any Guide.

The panther was a blatant indication that a genetically compatible Sentinel was very much present in Cascade, one his own spirit wolf-guide seemed happy with. Tough, Sandburg decided again…..

_**Apartment 307, 852 Prospect Avenue, Cascade..**. _

Jim jerked awake from his doze, heart pounding. Not ten yards away, sitting in front of the French windows that led to the balcony overlooking the city, was a growling, clearly miffed panther. By it's side, so faint as to be almost totally translucent, was the outline of an equally exasperated-looking wolf. _Spirit Guides_. Actual, real – metaphorically speaking of course – _Spirit Guides_.

He stood up shakily, but the danger to his Guide – and somehow, he instinctively knew that there had been danger, was no more. Abruptly both animals winked out, but Jim couldn't have had a bigger signal that he was on the right track if the astral plane had written it ten feet high in neon. Cause of constant debate amongst scholars, and to the envy of Bondless Sentinels everywhere, the famed "Guide Diaries" guide-author spoke casually about visions of animal spirit guides as if they were an everyday occurrence, as if sitting down in the a.m. for your eggs and bacon was an experience incomplete without laying eyes on some large feline, feral canine or other animal stretched out on the sofa that was invisible to everyone but you. Bonded Sentinels and Guides were ferociously insistent that they had spirit animal guides, despite repeated attempts by psychiatrists and so forth to debunk them as "manifestations of the subconscious Id" or whatever psychobabble was currently "in vogue". The Dark Guide _was_ real, and he was in Cascade.

Jim eyed the spare room that was currently piled high with boxes and began making immediate plans to turn it into a suite for his Guide. He'd actually forgotten about the real estate the Ellisons owned in Cascade, not surprising since between them his father and mother's respective High House families owned about a two thirds of the known universe, but this had been a godsend. It was the best apartment in the block and was in one of those areas of Cascade close enough to Banks' Central Precinct to have benefited immediately when the man set up his "new" PD so many years ago. Fortunately the rent was just inside "James Philip Ellis'" legitimately affordable limit, though since he owned the building anyway…

He suddenly smiled, infused with an enthusiasm, a sheer _joy_, that he hadn't experienced in years….

**HSSC PD, Halfway Space Station…**

The Captain of Police seemed to sag with relief, like a slowly deflating balloon, the closer they got to the elevators, Saran noted with amusement. The man was obviously delighted to have managed to do so much damage control in their impromptu meeting. _He honestly thinks he's got me fooled_, Saran realised with even more humour, stepping into the elevator with his nervously smiling guardians, (_and he's obviously never bothered to find out exactly what a Sentinel can do, because his heart and breathing shot up like a rocket every time he lied, whereas most people at least try to control them – uugh!)_

Saran frantically dialled "down" his olfactory sense as the elevator doors closed, the strong stench of chemical making him react instinctively to the acrid odour. Then his conscious mind caught up with what had just happened, and he stiffened, his heart missing a beat. The chemical signature was instantly recognisable:_ suppressants_.

Saran carefully directed the surge of excitement that came directly from his hindbrain, sending it flowing in tingles down his arms and to the hairs on his nape. Suppressants eliminated the "musk" of an empath's physical scent and the empathic "signal" broadcast by Sentinels, but most importantly they were undetectable by either party or anything but the most searching – extremely expensive - medical scans, which was why "suppressed" empaths and sentinels could work side by side unknowingly for years, _except…_

_Except_ for the first thirty minutes after the Sentinel or empath had ingested/injected the suppressant. For those first thirty minutes, the musk scent or mental signal could still be detected, along with the scent of the chemicals before they "kicked in" and nullified everything, including their own smell. The scent that had assaulted Saran's proboscis meant that an empath – he had caught musk, not another mental blip on his Sentinel sonar – had taken another dose of suppressants in the last thirty minutes…_and from the strength of the stink, a very powerful empath_, Saran realised, for the stronger the empath or more powerful the Sentinel, the higher the dosage of suppressant needed.

The carefully anonymous tight-beam regarding the abuse of empaths had "pretended" to originate from here. Also here was a powerful, bondless empath. _Coincidence? _As Sherlock Holmes had said, there was no such thing. Saran turned to the Captain of Police, part of him wondering if the man was going to have a heart attack in a few moments when Saran informed him that he'd changed his mind. A flying visit wasn't enough…he had decided to spent several weeks in his "home precinct", getting a real feel of the work from a grassroots level…a desk in the Homicide bullpen would suffice…barely holding down a grin, Saran turned to the Captain of Police, and opened his mouth….

_**Planet Hyperion, in a galaxy quite close by**…_

The ancient ruins thrust up from the ground with geometric precision, perfectly at right angles to the ground even though they had been abandoned for millennia. The ancient buildings, crammed on every surface with the alien markings and pictographs, were constructed of various sorts of stone, some glossy obsidian black, others sandy brown, others a sort of pale green, in a subtle repeating pattern that was only obvious if you were more than a hundred yards away.

Gage walked over the dusty, crumbly stoned ground, acutely aware of his Sentinel shadowing him. There was a reasonably technologically-advanced human colony on Hyperion, underwritten by one of the Nine Ruling Houses of the Oligarchy, High House Ellison, if Gage remembered, so their arrival from the liner _Byzantium _to the up-to-date shuttle port had been smooth, as had the air-skiff ride that had dropped them right at the edge of the mandatory exclusion zone erected around all alien archaeological sites. Hyperion was a new site, only 18 months old. Most mainstream scholars had refused to even consider Hyperion as a possible site for the "Ancients", the term given to the aliens, because of it's arid, almost Sahara desert like barrenness. For all his proven reputation in archaeology, Gage knew he had been the subject of amusement and ridicule for going against the "accepted wisdom" and doing test digs on Hyperion. After five tests had come up blank, the academics had forgotten about him, secure in their knowledge that on this occasion the renowned Gage Butler had bodged it. But Gage had _known_ with absolute certainty that there were ruins here, and the twelfth test dig had uncovered an archaeologist's heaven, for his lost city was the largest and most perfectly preserved site yet discovered, to the point where "ruins" were a misnomer.

Ahead of him he could see the students, volunteers and professors all digging in to help sift and uncover more stone, and despite his current predicament, Gage felt that tell-tale tingle of thrill he always got when he looked at an archaeological site just waiting to be explored. Rion, as they had christened it, had been built in a shallow, fertile valley basin that had been subject to extremely high flooding during Hyperion's sudden climate changes about 50,000 years ago, buried beneath silt and mud from the encroaching waters. When the currently dry, arid climate turned silt to dust and blew it away, the city had been progressively brought back to the surface of the planet, until Gage had had to dig only a few feet to find it. Another five or six decades and the ruins would have been revealed on their own. Gage grinned with an edge of malice; the nay-sayers and mockers were now hastily re-examining every desert world they'd eschewed as not being as temperate as the aliens – and humans – were known to prefer, in the hope of finding another once-green world turned barren with fame-promising ruins on it.

As with most people who loved their work, the working people were oblivious to the two newcomers, and Gage was able to literally walk right up to a frazzled Morris as he stood outside the big domed tent he and Gage shared, nose peeling from the sun, hirsute, bandy legs ridiculously pasty as they went down from his baggy khaki shorts, strawberry hair in such standing-on-end disarray as to appear that he'd just shoved his fingers into an electrical socket. For a long moment Gage stood in silence, watching with a smile as Morris finally looked up from the untidy bundle of paperwork he was cradling precariously against his chest with one lower arm, and actually focussed on who was standing in front of him.

Morris' intended greeting was strangled into a croaked, guttural "urk" at the back of his throat, his eyes widened, rounded to the size of saucers as they clamped on Gage – or rather Gage's exposed neck – then processed the big, black-dressed and subtly intimidating shadow standing right behind him. For a moment Gage watched with interest, seriously worried that his assistant's eyes would literally bug-out as they fixed on the narrow tattoo around Gage's throat. "Ugh!"

Time to take control, Gage decided, aware through the mental bond, which really could be described as "psychic", with his Sentinel that Race was finding Morris highly amusing. "Hi, Morris."

With a visible effort, Morris pulled himself together, literally shaking his head, the deer-in-headlights expression being replaced suddenly by a gleam of speculative avarice as his mind finally moved beyond "Sentinel" and identified the individual looming behind Gage – the extremely wealthy dilettante and man-about-town, Race Rainworth Keegan. Lesser House Keegan, true, but Race was the favourite nephew of the Matriarch Kristijana Akureyri of High House Akureyri, a fearsome operator who was said to bring down the arctic cold of her ancestral Iceland on any who displeased her. Gage could practically see "Wealthy Patron" appear in a cartoon bubble over Morris's head.

Race had never seriously considered archaeology, apart from childhood enjoyment of the four classic 20th – 21st Century Indiana Jones adventure movies and a couple of crash-bang action adventure ones about a mummy called Imhotep, so he had vague notions of scruffy twenty-somethings in jeans spending their days digging very slowly through mounds of dirt and rambling on incoherently about some miniscule molecule of pottery. True, there was a lot of that going on, but these kids were digging out beautifully preserved floors, walls, doors and entire buildings that looked as polished as if someone had sneaked in during the night before and constructed them. Race had done some research whilst aboard the _Byzantium_, mainly to take his mind of his overwhelming urge to bond with his Guide, and was aware of Gage's theory, hotly disputed, that the aliens had _deliberately_ abandoned _all_ their settlements on every single world they inhabited _simultaneously,_ for reasons unknown, before setting off_ en masse_ to a new destination, also unknown.

As Morris escorted them round the site, loftily ignoring the double-takes of the workers identical to what he had displayed with superficial _sang froid_, Race cautiously extended his senses while Morris filled Gage in on what had happened during his absence. Beautifully preserved the city was, but that was all it was, a collection of exquisitely carved stone. Race's superior olfactory senses could detect no strange, unidentifiable decaying biological matter, indicative of alien remains or gravesites. There were only a few artefacts such as vases and cutlery left in the buildings, and these had apparently been placed in the locations found by the aliens themselves. There was no sign of panicked departure or fire debris, nothing to indicate that the denizens had looked up from breakfast one morning to see a wall of water from the first of the great floods surging towards them. No foodstuff remains had ever been found either, and in an entire city there should have been some. In his most recent paper, Gage had asserted that Rion had long been abandoned by the aliens when the climate changes first flooded and buried the city, and on the evidence of what he could sense, even in just the first few hours, Race tended to agree. The entire city was just too clean with too many artefacts missing, like a hotel room after the previous guests have left and the new ones aren't yet in – the basic structure was there, but the minor details were missing.

Race "returned" as Morris wound up back at his tent where Gage had dumped his holdall before starting the walk around. "No!" he growled loudly, and Morris, bending down to pick up Gage's holdall and take it inside, jumped back as if bitten.

Gage winced; as Expedition Leader, he and his deputy had always shared the largest tent, but Morris was still cowering from Race's aggressive rebuttal, so Gage interjected smoothly, with a faint grin, "You get the tent all to yourself, Mo'."

"Umm, errr, s-s-s-ure!" Morris stammered nervously, recognising a Sentinel in "possessive" mode when he saw one. "I'll go check on dinner." He scuttled away at a fast clip, sneaking backward glances.

Race picked up his own baggage, marching firmly away to a smooth, cleared area that was close to the other tents yet definitely _away _from Morris's. Gage picked up his holdall and firmly bit down on the temptation to offer Race a can of coloured marker spray so he write MINE on Gage's forehead – the Dark Angel Sentinel would probably take him up on the offer. Blowing out air from his puffed cheeks, he followed Race; he could psychically feel the "edge" to Keegan's mental signature and regretted not coaxing the Sentinel into Bonding on the _Byzantium_ to release the empathic pressure a little. Oh well, hindsight was a wonderful thing, not.

Archaeology had little to spend on fripperies, so the emphasis was on function over aesthetics. Race, however, had no such financial considerations to bear in mind, which was fortunate considering that "the self-erecting "Galaxy-sized" King Dome Luxury Camping Domicile by Yeomans FAS cost a cool 53,000 galacs for the standard model. Gage blinked as he realised that Race's "tent" was the Super-Deluxe top of the range edition that retailed at a cool 100,000 galacs. At the press of a button it flowed effortlessly together as the mini-computers inside did their thing and in twenty-three seconds a silver dome twenty feet high and just as wide dominated its inferiors. Gage shot those around him an embarrassed smile that dissolved into a stunned gasp as he looked at the dome and saw the telltale shimmer of Black Widow Spider-Silk that covered the construction. Impervious to almost all known weapons, anything made from or covered by BWSS was guaranteed to survive disaster. Ski chalets were covered in the stuff that would not be crushed even by a major avalanche, and really wealthy skiers made their suits out of it – one guy had been hit dead centre by a massive avalanche that had swept him over a forty-foot cliff, only to walk away with a mild concussion because his BWSS snowsuit had protected him. BWSS was standard issue for fire fighters and elite military personnel. There were even urban legends that BWSS had saved people from death due to low-grade thermonuclear explosions. The presence of Black Widow Spider-Silk quadrupled the price of the tent in one fell swoop. Morris stood frozen near the cooking pot, an expression of childish envy writ large across his face. Thoroughly embarrassed, Gage hastily ducked into the tent, feeling closed in even though the thing was big enough to hold a couple of elephants. Every modern convenience and then some had been added, including the height of luxury – the bed.

Literally "air-beds" - floating bunks that hovered above ground - orthopaedically contouring to the human body to provide a restful slumber, they were ideal for archaeologists, soldiers and others who had to regularly "rough it", the floating off the ground providing the added bonus of keeping the human sleeper out of reach of any alien critters that were looking for a midnight snack or just curious. At the pillow end where there was a head-board on a normal bed there protruded a long, thin filament, which, when activated, projected an invisible force-bubble around the whole bed, further protecting the sleeper from pests like mosquitoes and flying bugs. There was one legend of the xeno-palaeontologist, alone on a planetary excavation site, who awoke one morning to find himself in the middle of a bubble of absolute blackness. Realising just before he panicked that the bubble exterior was covered in trillions of black beetle like things, he managed to tight-beam a warning to his colleagues so a HazMat – Hazardous Materials – team with BWSS suits were sent in, which was fortunate, for the bugs turned out to be a nocturnal, carnivorous species that remained dormant for most of that world's annual orbit before suddenly swarming out, settling on something big, warm and juicy and devouring it alive. The bugs could not penetrate BWSS, and had been relatively easy to dispose of, but the teams found the carcasses of several huge herbivores reduced to picked-clean skeletons in a direct trail back to the rock fissure where the bugs lived; without the bubble, the palaeontologist would been a mysterious skeleton who would have gone down as space legend like the old Earth-type _Marie Celeste_ mystery.

Most airbeds were fairly cheap, cheerful and amusingly inconsistent in the fact that the orthopaedics usually locked in one position after a couple of years instead of remoulding nightly, the levitating mechanism had a tendency to go on the fritz and suddenly drop the bed a foot before raising it again and the powering motor began to chug loudly like an asthmatic tractor. This airbed was a huge, Mega-King sized monstrosity that could have slept a couple of dozen, if you were into that sort of thing. Smugly it floated with perfect equilibrium in total silence, an exact six feet off the floor. Race was storing all their gear with sharp actions, his bristling attitude clearly challenging Gage to say anything. Wisely, Gage decided that discretion was the better part of valour – besides, Race's snores were soft and intermittent, while Morris ground his teeth in between doing his chainsaw impression. _No thanks, Morris_.

"Diiiinneeeer!" There came the banging of metal pans against each other in accompaniment to the yell, so Gage simply dropped his holdall and together they went back out to the camp.

At this point, Race turned on the charm, complimenting the stew and asking questions about the dig; within half an hour everyone was a lot more relaxed and chatting amicably, though they mostly respected the fact that Race had Gage sat next to him and there was a small "zone" of space into which no one intruded, until midnight and a little too much wine made everyone mellow – and Margreta bold. The lush, blonde researcher had had a fling with Gage the previous summer, however, Gage had rapidly figured out that Margreta viewed him as nothing more than a useful rung up on the ladder of her great ambitions and had ended the relationship. Margreta, used to keeping her pawns bamboozled until she was bored enough to walk away, had been mightily miffed. Now, however, Gage was again a useful prospect – he had a wealthy and powerful Sentinel backing him, who could do a lot for her. She had never paid any attention to anything that didn't boost her career so had no idea how to operate around a Sentinel and Guide, especially not understanding the fact that Sentinels were at their most possessive when newly bonded. Considering Morris as dirt under her feet when she thought of him at all, Margreta had not noticed the warning signs of Race's verbal aggression towards Morris earlier in the day, of how the Sentinel kept himself between his Guide and Gage's deputy and how the Sentinel had set "their" tent as far away from Morris as he could reasonably get.

Now she smiled seductively at Gage, conjuring up images of them in _her_ tent the previous summer; she was _very_ carnally talented and Gage Butler certainly knew how to _please_ a woman. (_Uh-oh_) Gage, a lot more sober than he was acting, having pretended to drink a lot more than he had, tried to freeze her off with a glare. Sensibly he had decided that indulging generously in wine with his unpredictable, on-edge Sentinel in the vicinity was a no-no. Margreta was definitely tipsy, and the greed on her features was so obvious she ought to have galac signs tattooed on her cheeks. Did she really think he had so little common sense and self-control that he was going to let her jump his bones again to further her ambition, even if Race would allow it? Which the Sentinel would not, Gage knew, feeling the Dark Angel stiffen as he caught the lascivious gazes she was throwing at his Guide. If an empath was in a long-term relationship or married when they bonded to a Sentinel, the spouse/partner had to remain away for 7-14 days after First Bonding, for the Sentinel was at his or her most extreme possessiveness during this time. The instigator of an acrimoniously ended previous summer fling stood no chance.

Margreta sashayed over to Gage, acting as if Race was not there. _(Big mistake, sweetie_). "Hi, Gage," she pouted. "Would you like some more wine?"

Her next line would have been a request for him to help her get the crate out of her tent in expectation of him following her for an enthusiastic romp, but she never got there. Race surged to his feet, and instinctively she leaned back. Her inebriated state had incapacitated her sense of balance and, tripping over her own foot, she ended up sat on the ground on her backside, staring up owlishly at the looming figure, with those of the dig's team still awake giggling at the sight.

"We're going to bed." Utterly ignoring the woman, Race growled the command low in his throat, whirling round and marching Gage in front of him with a vice-like grip.

Margreta's face flushed an unbecoming purple as the camp fell into more giggles, but as Gage, pliant, allowed Race to steer them to the tent, he had no sympathy. Margreta used people for her own ends then dumped them the instant they were no longer of value. A little humble pie was exactly what she needed.

Gage half-expected Race to pounce the instant the tent was sealed behind them, but they both got ready for sleep with the Sentinel displaying unnerving equanimity. Deciding to eschew everything bar his old, faded sweatpants, just in case his Sentinel decided they were going to bond _right now_, Gage lay on the airbed and felt it mould itself to him. Being a Guide was hard on clothes – a Sentinel "sensory scanned" his or her Guide every morning, usually by running their hands over the Guide's body, during which any clothing the Guide wore was perfectly safe, but when a bonding was deeper or more intense than the daily mellow, shallow mini-bonding, that was it.

Though primarily a mental union, the merging of two minds, sharing emotions and thoughts, the Sentinel would also strip the Guide and "map" his or her body, using enhanced touch through the fingertips as they traced the Guide's form, plus scent to inhale the unique pheromone signature every person had, followed by taste as the Sentinel nipped, bit, and licked, tasting the Guide. Although bonding was not sexual, biology meant a person produced more pheromones from erogenous zones, besides which, to a Sentinel's hyper-sensitive touch, the finest gossamer would be as sackcloth – the Guide could not be properly "mapped" – that is, stroked, nuzzled, bitten, licked, tasted, cuddled, petted, caressed, hugged, fondled, squeezed, patted, massaged, kneaded, embraced, enfolded, nibbled, snuggled and generally cosseted – with coarse fibres blocking hungry Sentinel fingers and mouth. Since a Sentinel wanting to bond was about the most impatient creature in existence, the Guide's poor clothing ended up simply ripped off and dumped in tattered shreds wherever the Sentinel tossed them.

His musings ended as Race got on the other side of the airbed, also clad in comfy, baggy sweatpants, and activated the protective bubble, setting it from "clear" see-through to disguising "opaque". Settling down, Race simply reached out and pulled Gage to him, tucking his Guide securely under him, fingers entwining and stroking his hair.

Gage cautiously placed his hands on Race's back, gently rubbing the tension from his shoulder muscles. The Sentinel was obviously wide-awake but made no move to initiate Bonding. Gage wondered whether he should coax Race into a Deep Bonding, perhaps it would ease some of Race's possessive wariness?

"Um, Gage….Morris…."

(_Ah, Morris, I thought so_.) Gage had watched the "dig" being replaced by "Morris" almost instantly in Race's "Sentinel" persona as his chief rival, especially during the tour when he'd noticed Race imprinting the new scents on his memory and figuring out that Gage obviously occupied the same tent as Morris. He wasn't going to help, though. "Yeah?"

Race minutely examined each individual strand of Gage's now dusted hair. "Is…er…Morris…um…gay?"

"_No!_" Gage retorted in genuine astonishment, gazing up at Race in surprise.

Race's somewhat stiff posture relaxed slightly. "Then why does he keep looking at me like a dog eyeing up a juicy steak?" He asked plaintively.

Gage had noted the lessening of tension. (_It was Morris and me he worried were lovers)_, Gage realised wryly. Most Sentinel and Guide pairings were two people of the same sex, but the vast majority of Guides were heterosexual. Sentinels and Guides married and had children all the time once their bonding had been firmly established for a few years, but a Sentinel's possessiveness towards his or her Guide meant that they did not cope at all well if their Guide was sexually active with someone of the _same_ gender but who was _not_ the Sentinel, somehow viewing the person's sexual claim to/sexual possession of their Guide as a threat to the Bond. Race's verbal intimidation of Morris could easily have flipped into physical aggression if he sensed the man had - literally - had Gage.

Time to explain the wonderful world of archaeology. "You're rich and influential – he's drooling at the thought of "wealthy patron". Besides, you've shown a genuine interest in archaeology and you don't have an angle."

"What do you mean, "angle"?"

"Your first Science Lesson in the Real World, my Sentinel: forget the stereotype of scientists as dispassionate observers searching for universal truth. We're just as human as everyone and brim full of the same pre-conceptions, pet theories, prejudices and bigotries – and so are those that fund us."

"You mean you only get funding if you find stuff that agrees with their beliefs?" Race translated.

"Unfortunately, all too often." Gage pressed his fingers against Race's back, encouraging the Sentinel to settle down next to him and relax further. "It shames me to admit it but in the late 20th Century there were a plethora of racially prejudiced historians, so-called men and women "of science", who found plenty of rich neo-Nazi patrons to help them publish their "revisionist" claims that the Holocaust never happened."

Race paused in his nuzzling of Gage's throat and raised incredulous eyes to his Guide. "You're kidding?"

"I wish. Things got so bad that some European nations had to pass laws making it a crime punishable by imprisonment to deny the Holocaust. One Member of the European Parliament caused furore when he publicly claimed, during a televised debate, that the Diary of Anne Frank was a fake produced by the Jews. There are always some people who give into the lure of money or position, but every Edward Said and Rigoberto Menchu bring science into disrepute."

"Never heard of them."

Gage's mouth twisted. "I'm not surprised, the scientific community is very good at sweeping embarrassment under the carpet. In the 20th Century, Said and Menchu both falsified their data and materials to support each one his pet theory. Menchu actually won the Nobel Prize. Worst of all, they both got nothing more than a figurative slap on the wrist. Essentially, they got away with it, which casts doubt on the veracity of every other scientific discovery." Gage shrugged slightly, continuing, "Archaeology has always been more vulnerable than most sciences to those sort of pressures because it's never been a lucrative discipline. Archaeology was only financially rewarding to any significant degree when it was first invented in the 19th Century, when Austen Henry Layard found Ninevah and Heinrich Schliemann was digging up the gold of Troy by the cubic tonne. After that, you only got only got the four Good Ps - plaudits, power, profit and promotion – "

"Nice alliteration."

"Thanks…if you discovered a lost city or made some major breakthrough like Rohl's Chronology -"

"_Whose what?_" Race frowned down at his Guide. "Are you making this up?"

"No," denied Gage. "Do you want to hear this or not?" He suppressed the sensation of feeling that he was a parent telling an oversized schoolboy a bedtime story, but Race seemed genuinely interested.

"Okay."

"Twentieth Century archaeology's biggest failing was an extreme prejudice against the Bible. For centuries, every word had been taken literally, even though some scriptures themselves stated that they were symbolic. Then along came the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, so people swung to the other extreme of the pendulum and debunked all of it as myth and fairy-tale. Agnostics like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells put the boot in - before they changed their minds - and Charles Darwin was a godsend to the sceptics –"

"I thought Darwin had been discredited?"

"He has now, but remember, back then no one knew he was a thief" Gage pointed out. "In the 20th Century, Darwin was god. The problem _20th_ Century archaeologists inherited was the fact that in the _19th_ Century, archaeologists had gone to Egypt - which shared a lot of ancient history with the Jews - taking a spade in one hand and a bible in the other. They excavated all sorts of Egyptian sites and dated them as being synonymous with biblical events, often on evidence that was downright flimsy or really existed only in their imagination. Even Jean Champollion, the Founder of Egyptology, fell into that trap – he claimed that the biblical pharaoh called Shishak at 1st Kings 14:25-26 and 2nd Chronicles 12: 2-9 was the same man as the Pharoah Shoshenk I, for no better reason than their names sound similar."

Race only needed a second to think about it. "Grenade and Grenada sound similar too, but one blows things up and the other's an island in the Caribbean!"

Gage teasingly reached up a hand and patted Race on the head, ignoring his warning growl. "Good boy, go straight to the top of the class - exactly right, exactly the problem. In the Bible, names have tremendous significance, and were often changed after an event of great proportions – Abram to Abraham is a famous example. "Nimrod", who's mentioned in Genesis, meant "great rebel" or "mighty hunter in _opposition_ to God", and was not his birth name. "Saul" meant "chosen as king" and his real name was Lobihu. The Bible writer Jeremiah added the Hebrew equivalent of the letter "a" to the front of Queen Jezebel's name, changing it from meaning "Princess of Baal" in her native language to "Piece of dung" in Hebrew. The word "Shishak" is not a name at all, it's a description – it means "destroyer of cities."

"You're very clever, aren't you?" Race said in mock admiration.

Gage snorted and immediately closed his eyes and began to snore comically, only to open them with a yelp when Race tweaked a nipple sharply between forefinger and thumb. "Talk, Guide."

"Ouch." Gage rubbed the abused mammary ostentatiously, but obediently continued. "In 1993 a body was discovered – named Ozti – that archaeologists found had been dead for 5,300 years. Unfortunately Ozti made every history book in the world wrong, because he was found with a copper axe, a very well crafted copper axe that showed humans must have been smelting copper for up to five hundred years previously to get that good at it. But accepted archaeological "fact" said that humans hadn't been clever enough to smelt copper until a thousand years _after_ Ozti had died. Copper smelting isn't the most inconspicuous trade, but the scientists hadn't just missed it by a century, they'd missed it by a millennium, probably closer to 1500!"

"I think I can see where this is going." Race murmured his understanding.

"Archaeology was still licking its wounds from the Ozti embarrassment, when Rohl published his _A Test of Time_ theory in the year 1997. Basically, Rohl was researching something else and accidentally discovered discrepancies in the dating of Egyptian history. His book said that Egyptian history had been artificially extended – made too long – by three hundred years, and if you took those off, all those biblical events and people for which there was no evidence suddenly started turning up all over the place. They found an ancient dried up tributary of the Nile, which led to an undiscovered city inhabited by non-Egyptians, plus a cult statue that we now know was Joseph the son of Jacob, Egypt's great Vizier. He produced a plausible raft of evidence, but the clincher was the astronomy."

"Stars and stuff?"

"Stars aren't like people," Gage pointed out, "they have no interest in money or power and no reason to lie. If a historian states event X happened in Year A but astronomy tells you it happened in Year D you can guarantee that Year D is right. Rohl took 31 star positions and compared them to the "traditional" chronology – 28 were completely non-compatible and the other 3 were "significantly" out. Then he did the same with _his _New Chronology; 29 fitted exactly, 1 was a near match and one was out slightly."

"So what was the problem?" Race persisted. "Stars don't lie."

"Race, Race, I told you, mainly money followed by the four _other _Bad "Ps"- power, patronage, prejudice and politics. The world of academia is not ivory towers, it's street-fighting." Gage iterated. "We're not talking about a minor blip of twenty years either way. Generations of eminent, influential Egyptologists had goofed by 300 years and no one had noticed! Another embarrassment on top of Ozti! Added to that, there was a lot of prejudice against the Bible and many people didn't want it to be proven right. Alexander Pope said, "A man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still." A 20th century religious minister said that he could teach a man who did not believe, but the man who did not _want _to believe was impervious to logic, reason, or any other persuasion. In 1852 a German named Herzog declared the Book of Daniel fraudulent because Belshazzar was "fiction", only to be humiliated two years later when the Nabonidus Chronicle was found. Pontius Pilate was a fairy story until 1964 when a workman turned over a stone slab, and King David of Israel was equally mythical until a stone inscription mentioning a King of the House of David was unearthed in the 1990s. Instead of learning from past mistakes, 20th Century Egyptology and archaeology had spent decades rubbishing biblical history as fairy stories and Rohl was about to smear egg on their faces yet again."

"So what did he do?"

"The anti-Rohl reaction was almost hysterical, but he kept plugging away. Wisely he put the other evidence on the backburner and concentrated on the astronomical evidence. Stars don't lie, so eventually the sheer weight of mathematical fact vindicated him. But Egyptology dating had a knock on effect with Assyrian, which had a knock on to Babylonian, and so forth. It took fifty years of painstaking reconstruction and wholesale re-dating of entire world powers to get it right."

"And that's what you're doing here?" Race looked down at his Guide with alarm.

"Nothing so grand." Gage assured him, tugging the Sentinel back down to snuggle again. "But there is a faction of humanity that wants to think we're _homo superior_ – xenophobic in the genuine sense. We use artificial materials like Plexiglas and plasticrete to build with, whereas the aliens' artefacts are always made of natural materials – wood, stone, metal – even though they're perfectly crafted. That faction is trying to use that to promote the idea that the aliens were primitive inferiors who died out rather than a technologically advanced culture that, for some reason, decided to move on into the unknown reaches of space." Deciding he'd kept Race dangling long enough, he finished, "That's why Morris is so keen on you – he's after an impartial patron when he leaves."

Race paused. "Leaves?"

Yes, there was surprise, puzzlement and pleased relief in the Sentinel's tone, and Gage hadn't missed the flash of jealousy when he'd said Morris' name. "Archaeology likes to think it's radical and cutting edge, but underneath it's conventional and worries what the neighbours will think. The sort of people archaeology prefer are rangy, corn-fed field types or vague academics who look good in tweed. Can you picture Morris in tweed?"

"I'd rather not."

"No one would hire him on a level higher than general dogsbody, but I knew he had the makings of a great expedition leader so I took him on as my assistant and he's now one of the most sought after people in archaeology. He's going to take up the offer of a promotion with Harvard & Yale Xeno-Archaeology Department as a full lecturing professor."

Race had been listening to this explanation, but now his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Wait….how long have you known that Morris is leaving your employ?"

Gage blinked up at him innocently (_here it comes_). "About six months."

"And you didn't tell me!"

"I couldn't," Gage confessed, "you're just too cute when you pout." With that, he bucked sharply, throwing the unprepared Sentinel off him.

He scrabbled only a few inches, mainly because he was laughing too much, before he was summarily pounced on and pinned down immovably with a growling Sentinel's face only inches from his own. "Are you teasing your Sentinel, Guide?" The words were breathed in a deep, chesty rumble.

Gage smirked, (_in spades!_). "Wanna bond?" He taunted.

Race growled again, with delight as his Guide dropped his mental shields totally, allowing full connection between their minds; he sank joyfully into the enveloping mind-harmony of the bond, even as he nipped his Guide's throat in punishment for the teasing, chuckling at the whimpered moan of need it elicited. Gage's body temperature increased and delicious wafts of musk reached Race's waiting nostrils.

Vaguely smug at his foresight as his sweatpants were unceremoniously stripped off and hurled to bounce on the bubble, Gage wrapped his arms tight around his Sentinel, lowering his mental shields and gave himself over to the sensations as Race proceeded to thoroughly brand his Guide.

**Planet Eden, Ellison Ziggurat…**

"You're sure!"

Reading the hard-copy of _The Times_ in his father's study, Stephen looked up at the edge of excitement, and hope, in his father's voice. Discarding the venerable British newspaper that had continued to publish in hard copy throughout the Inhabited Galaxies over the centuries and saw no reason to add any explanation of origin to its name, he waited patiently until William cut the vidlink.

As he finished, William's eyes glanced automatically towards the clearly heard squeals and shrieks of his son, daughter and grandchildren who were playing in the nearest garden. Instantly Stephen knew it was about one of his brothers, Hunter or more probably, Jim.

William said without preamble, "Jim has gone undercover at Cascade PD, as a Detective –"

"James Philip Ellis?"

"How did you know?"

Stephen shrugged. "Jim got in touch with me and asked if I could "create" a well-paid do-nothing position for a cop called Ellis, so I've got him security guarding my estate at Methylian. I did the Math."

"My contact with the Dark Angels," even with his son, William Ellison was always discreet, "told me that Jim has reported seeing his spirit animal guide – a panther – along with a wolf. It seems that Jim _has _found the Dark Guide!"

Stephen felt his own heart jump, but felt it best to be the voice of reason. "That's good, but dad, we have to be prepared here. We've both read the reports on what the Dark Guide suffered with Alex Barnes, which means that he's going to view bonding with about the same enthusiasm as bubonic plague. Jim is literally going to have to track him down, which could take months, possibly over a year. Cascade is a Sanctuary for wild empaths, and people from all over the Inhabited Galaxies teem through the city daily, making getting a fix on him more difficult. Plus, once he's got him, he's going to have to help the Guide work through all sorts of crap – who knows what issues the Guide will have after Alex –"

William waved a hand. "I'm aware of that, son. I've got the best counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists and shrinks in the Galaxies on retainer. The Guide will get all the help he needs. I'm just so pleased that at last there's some progress – we have definite confirmation of a Dark Guide alive, and the presence of animal spirit guides confirm that he's genetically compatible with Jim. I have to hope."

"Sure dad." Stephen agreed and grinned back at his father, sharing the ebullience of the moment. When Jim got his Guide and hopefully mellowed, maybe the Ellisons could become a real family again. His musing was interrupted when William spoke.

"What's the sit-rep with de _y_ l'Almonté?"

Stephen sighed regretfully. "I phoned Alphonse and explained, and he got in touch with Ruis."

"And…?" William's tone suggested he already knew the answer.

"Complete waste of time. Ruis just carried on – he never thought his father would really do anything. The night before I was going to sack him, Don Alphonse's men picked him up and bundled him off home. The official story is a medical emergency, that Alphonse is ill. I got our people to corroborate. I've got Mara-Kaur Imran Van den Mikhail of High House Syal as the new manager, she's one of the daughters of Matriarch Madjhuri Syal, and cousin to the LEO Commissioner, Saran van den Mikhail. The Vicereine of Olban is the Matriarch's sister, Saran's late father and Mara's father were brothers. She's laser-sharp and hungry - I think we should keep her and promote her as rapidly as we can."

William nodded approvingly, knowing Stephen's ability to judge character. Stephen had taken an instant dislike to Ruis, and only William's long-time friendship with Don Alphonse had let him ignore his third son's sound advice. "Is she the Matriarch's Body Heir?"

"No, Saran is. He's her sister the Vicereine's only child by her first husband, Aleksandr Van den Mikhail."

In the world of the Oligarchy, all the players were memorized by the time you could crawl. "_The _Van den Mikhails?" William checked, meaning the Lesser House family whose members were scattered throughout IFP politics like confetti – the Van den Mikhails had a self-confessed love for being ministers, senators, royal courtiers, diplomats, ambassadors and all that swanky intrigue. The current Queen-Empress Consort of the Second British Empire was a Van den Mikhail.

"The very same." Stephen acknowledged. "Most people were very surprised that Patriarch Khan Singh Syal IX would arrange the Vicereine's marriage to a Lesser House son when she was his favourite child and could have had one of us from a High House." In the Oligarchy, arranged marriages decided upon by the family's head – the ruling matriarch or patriarch - were normal. Stephen's own marriage to Karen had been arranged by William; Suzette, Kia and Edmund were already formally betrothed. "But the old Patriarch knew what he was about. The Vicereine was his favourite child by his favourite wife, and her personal happiness was of importance to him."

"It turned into a love match." William estimated, with a certain wistful regret that meant he was thinking of Stephen and Jim's mother, Grace van Zant.

"Yep. They designed Saran within about a week of the wedding, but were sexually active with each other too. The Vicereine's first anniversary present to Alexsandr was making him Viceroy Consort of Olban, an honour she's not conferred any of her subsequent husbands or co-parents of her other children. Sadly, Saran was barely toddling when Khan and Aleksandr were killed in that ground car pile up on Ganymede, making Madjhuri the Matriarch since of course she was Khan's Body Heir, but the Vicereine is her only sister, and they've always been close – according to rumour, the Vicereine was inconsolable when Aleksandr was killed and Madjhuri was a great strength to her. Mara's father was – I think – the Matriarch's fourth husband, one of Alexsandr's brothers. Mara is _his_ Body Heir; the Van den Mikhails are an up and coming family, quite enterprising, lots of potential – their star is rising."

"Right." William nodded, effectively rubber-stamping any future decision Stephen chose to make. New, vigorous blood was always welcome in the Oligarchy; the High Houses had kept their power not by crushing the young Turks but by co-opting them.

**High House de y l'Almonté ziggurat, other side of the planet…**

Ruis piloted the force bubble jerkily, rage making his movements uncoordinated, easing closer to the T-Rex and watching with atavistic satisfaction as it ripped chunks of flesh from what appeared to be a brontosaurus calf. He was still in shock and his fingers trembled with the need to batter the old fool who resided in the house behind him. How _dare_ his father have him grabbed by those goons and marched back home like a child? And for what, the tittle-tattle of those whores at Demos, who ought to have been grateful he noticed them? Flat chested, dishpan faced cows, who should have been grateful to augment their meagre pay checks with the baubles he'd have given them! The old bastard had forbidden him – actually set the guards to stop him – from leaving the estate. All staff were under strict instructions: no alcohol, no narcotics, no women. Ruis could see the secret smiles on the faces of those peasants, secretly laughing at him even as they called him "sir"!

Attracted by the sunlight glinting off the bubble, the T-Rex approached and Ruis viciously activated one of the electro-defences before hitting the booster, soaring up and away, uncaring that he had burnt the creature badly when he could easily have evaded it, seething and stewing in self-pity and venom. Stephen Ellison, too, how dare he criticise him, a Body Heir, when he was nothing but a younger son, neither Body Heir to his mother or father! They had even replaced him with a woman – as if women were any good for anything other being in a Y-shape! Mara-Kaur Imran Van den Mikhail of all people. Prissy, frigid little bitch, she'd dared to look down her nose at him when she was only one of the Matriarch's platoon of brats. If only she hadn't knocked her drink over at that embassy do, the drug would have obliterated her memory and motor controls and he could have sneaked her up to one of the bedrooms for some fun and no one been any the wiser. Now she was doing his job in his factory with his father and the Ellison family's blessing!

Ruis narrowed his eyes; it was too much. His father had to go! The old fool had outlived his worth decades ago, and was interfering far too much. But not yet…the Ellisons first. He thought about it for a moment, then reluctantly abandoned Stephen as a target. The Patriarch took his family's safety far too seriously for Ruis to be able to get rid of Stephen, or the youngest two. Even Stephen's brats were safe. However, Ellison did have children he couldn't protect…that bastard brat…Howard, Hugh, Huntley – no, Hunter….no, not him. James Ellison. Ruis sneered to himself as he turned the bubble back to the ziggurat. Yes, the famous grim Jim, supposed Dark Sentinel. Not that there was any such thing. Ruis shook his head at the fairy tales some people believed – Dark Sentinels were as mythical as the Easter Bunny, but Ellison _was_ a Bondless Sentinel, which should make things easier. Get Jimmy to zone out on some flashing lights, then Ruis could simply walk right up to the big goon and fire a disruptor into his face while Ellison stood there blank faced and drooling. Ruis smiled, broadly.

To everyone's astonishment, including Gage's own, he found the Big Discovery, the Temple, only six days after his and Race's arrival. The intensity of their Bonding had left both men tired the morning after their arrival and Gage hadn't managed to get his butt out of bed into the shower before nine a.m. To Gage's vast lack of surprise, no one had commented on his late rising as he strolled to the spot he'd earmarked for his personal excavation the previous day. To his amusement, Race was not hovering at his shoulder with every step; the Sentinel had gone straight towards the large coffee pot.

Although still nervous, Morris relaxed when Race displayed a much more jovial attitude towards him than the day before, assured that his rival for his Guide's affection would soon be leaving, although Race still did not allow Morris any time alone with Gage, not just yet. Margreta superciliously ignored Gage, a tactic that failed because, to Race's observant amusement, the archaeologist simply didn't notice, too wrapped up in the new wonders that the excavators were practically tripping over every hour or so. But still, he kept his Sentinel ears perked. It had been only a day after all.

But generally there was nothing to complain about. Margreta's nasal voice was sharply snide, and also salacious in its implications of the "real" relationship between Race and Gage. By lunchtime Race had decided that not only would Margreta be leaving the dig, she would never work in archaeology again, and her career was definitely down the toilet. To Race's surprised relief, however, he was not required to put out any damaging fires of gossip caused by her spiteful tongue. Even those on the dig who did not know Gage personally knew him or of him professionally, and accurately judged his character and proclivities against Margreta's far less likeable personality and known vindictiveness. Those who did know him firmly refuted her spite and her insinuations. Besides, everyone there had read the famous "Guide Diaries" and knew that the relationship between Sentinel and Guide was emotionally intense and that bonding involved physical intimacy, but was totally non-sexual in 99 of Bonds.

More importantly, Gage seemed to have lost his resentment at being captured and bonded; he was much more relaxed since they'd been here than he'd been since the beginning. The second night of the dig, Gage himself instituted a gentle bonding that left both men refreshed and content. Relaxing even further, the following day Race allowed Gage to go off to his "patch" of the dig by himself, while he helped some of the students sift dirt and flirted jokingly.

Coming back to the tent in the evening, Race looked down at himself ruefully. From scalp to sole he was covered in the fine silt dust that got everywhere - time for the second shower of the day before dinner. Grinning, he stepped into the tent and stood as the automatic filters around the entrance sucked the grime and dust off his clothes and exposed body, leaving his clothes clean enough to wear for two consecutive days before washing. Ah, the wonders of the Deluxe model, which included state of the art sonic showers. Not as tactilely satisfying as good old H20, but just as cleansing. Once the air circulators had dried him off, he went back into the main tent and began to dress in fresh jeans and a cool cotton shirt, carefully extended his hearing. That very morning, one of the students had stuck her head in to ask if they wanted one egg or two with breakfast and got a close up and personal view of a naked Race's vital statistics before she fled, flame-cheeked. If he could hear approaches, he'd be prepared.

Instinctively his senses gravitated towards Gage's steady heartbeat and easy respiration, automatically sensory scanning his Guide. Then he picked up Morris, speaking in what could only be a furtive whisper, indicating a clandestine conversation. Dark Angel instincts kicked in, and he dialled up the volume, eavesdropping shamelessly as he finished dressing and putting his boots back on.

"_Man, what happened?"_

Gage smiled as Morris proved you _could_ hiss words that did not contain the letter "s". "It's okay, Morris."

Morris snorted. This was the first opportunity he'd had to speak privately with Gage without the big Sentinel lurking ominously close by and he flicked nervous glances about. "_How did it happen?_"

Again with the hissing but no "s". Gage's heartbeat remained steady and his voice good-humoured as he admitted wryly, "I went to the Artefact Exhibition on Sentrus IV, but I forgot before I went that I was due to up my suppressant dosage again. Race was there and the rest is history."

Morris digested this, shifting twitchily from foot to foot, his voice taking on a hushed edge. "Look man, Gage, buddy, are you okay? I mean…I mean…he doesn't…hurt…. you?"

Eavesdropping Race's amusement abruptly evaporated as he realised that "hurt" was a euphemism for "rape". Unconsciously growling he began to move towards the door, focussing on where his Guide and the little pipsqueak were, but then his Guide's low laugh and still relaxed vital signs stopped him.

"_No,_ Morris." Gage repudiated firmly, then his voice softened. "It's okay, Morris….it's…. good."

A part of Race that he didn't even realise was wound tight suddenly slackened deep in his gut at the admission. So, not a ringing endorsement, but it was the first time that Gage had made any sober indication, outside of Bonding - which could be dismissed as pheromones and brain chemicals - that he was actually content with what happened rather than just being resigned to it. Race hadn't realised that he needed to hear Gage verbalise it. (_Morris, you're forgiven_). Switching off his enhanced hearing, he went out of the tent and was blandly eating dinner when his Guide and Morris finally appeared round the fire.

After four consecutive days of bland stew that teetered dangerously on the edge of being "broth", i.e., weak and watery, plus coffee that was frequently chewable, Race took firm charge of rations, ditching the rota and ushering the expedition members back to their trenches on the grounds that they were doing work much more important and much less likely to result in mass salmonella outbreaks. He then made some urgent tight-beam calls to his private caterers. On the morning of Day Five, the camp awoke to the rich seduction of filtering Arabica coffee beans, that drifted into the tents, caressing noses, easing silkily up nostrils, down into lungs and stroking lushly across taste buds that stood to attention with zeal. Hard upon the heels of that came more olfactory orgasms with the sizzle of frying bacon, sausages and other goodies. Race went from being uncertainly accepted to universally adored. He basked, smugly, aware of Gage's unhidden chuckles, even as his Guide shovelled thick slabs of fresh bacon and biscuit down his gullet.

Mid-morning of day six, Race was considering what to do for lunch, automatically monitoring Gage as usual, when he felt his Guide's heart, pulse and breathing skyrocket. Startling Morris and those near by, he went from standing start to full sprint as he sped through the camp towards whatever threatened his Guide.

"Gage!" Race didn't even slow down as he jumped into the square excavated hole, seven by seven feet wide by six deep, that Gage was standing in.

His Guide was covered in a thick layer of freshly billowing silt dust, turning him completely beige, but his eyes were wide and staring and he stood stock still.

Fearing Gage was in some kind of traumatic catatonia, Race ran his hands over his Guide's body from head to foot, ignoring the feelings of disgust – from Margreta – and embarrassment from the others who had followed his headlong dash, that impinged against his mental barriers, protectively shielding his guide from the wild, negative emotions. There were no physical signs of injury. He pushed against Gage's mind with his own empathic power, but all he got was the image of a massive, carved stone edifice. "Gage, buddy, please. What is it?" Race was starting to panic.

Silently, Gage raised one dusty hand, cupped Race's chin, and gently pushed his head around so he was looking over his shoulder at what Gage was looking at. Obediently turning his entire frame, Race looked blankly at the opposite wall of the pit, crumbling silt dust, a large portion of which had obviously just collapsed into the bottom of the trench, explaining Gage's grimy state – wait a minute….

Sentinel eyes picked up easily what they had anxiously missed before. Reaching out a hand, Race brushed off the silt, instantly revealing a black obsidian stone wall covered with carvings that his Sentinel enhanced memory recalled were not replicated anywhere else on the site. His enhanced sight easily picked up the hair-thin cracked bisecting the "wall". "It's a door," he murmured.

Abruptly Morris let out a yip and then _he _started to hyperventilate and stutter incoherently. Suddenly finding himself looking up at a mass of excited people gazing down at him like dogs eyeing a marrow bone, Race pulled Gage behind him and glared ferociously at the archaeologists, Sentinel senses instantly on full alert. Gage tried to break free and he brought his Guide to heel with a sharp telepathic command. "What the hell is going on?" He demanded aloud as his Guide obediently stilled.

"It's _The Temple!_" Morris breathed reverently. "It must be huge." He fastened his eyes on Gage. "If the temple is so big, Rion could have been the capital city of their species!"

Tanny, the youngest and a freshman student at Rainier, made to lower herself into the trench only to freeze as Race snarled. The Sentinel was in control now, unsure of the danger but knowing it did not like these people crowding in above and avidly staring at his Guide. His Guide, no on else's! _Mine!_

"Everybody back off!" Gage' sharp tone had them all easing away. "Morris, start digging, everyone concentrate on this area. Race, _Race_, listen to me, climb back up the ladder, yeah, that's right, I'm behind you, promise…come on, Race, they don't want me!"

The Sentinel practically bounded up the last rung, standing tensely at the top and glaring at the people who wisely stayed back. He shot out a hand and hauled his Guide up the last few rungs virtually by the scruff of his neck. Taking Race's hand, Gage firmly led him away from the trench, nodding sharply at Morris in command and approval for keeping his head. A Sentinel was never so dangerous as when protecting their Guide and anyone who panicked and made a wrong move too close to the Sentinel could easily end up seriously injured or killed. The instant they were clear of the throng, Race surged forward, gripping Gage's arm and dragging him, stumbling into their tent. Once inside he sealed the door and began to pace up and down, checking for danger, his senses hyper-alert. He stopped in front of Gage and yanked him close, breathing in his scent, running his hands over Gage's shoulders, down his arms, across his torso and abdomen, round his back and buttocks, back to his groin and down his legs, stroking his hands down then back up from Gage's shoulders to his wrists, clearly agitated.

Gage had to act fast or he would be kept prisoner in the tent for the rest of the day, coddled in quilts and pillows, constantly brought things to eat, drink and wear, cuddled, petted and hugged by the anxious Sentinel in what the Guide Diaries termed either his "Blessed Protector" state, or more irreverently, the "Mother Hen from Hell mode". He had to put the Sentinel back in its box, quickly.

"Race, Race!" He raised his hands and placed them gently against Keegan's cheeks, focussing the Sentinel's attention on him and rigorously keeping his heartbeat and respiration down, as the Sentinel would only interpret his excited need to get back to the temple as fear or distress. "It's alright, Race! They didn't want me, they didn't want to take me away from you, they know I belong to you."

"Mine." The Sentinel affirmed, pulling Gage close, but he was listening, focussing on what Gage was saying rather than just hearing the 'Guide voice', "Claimed and marked, Guide."

"Claimed and marked." Gage repeated. "I'm safe, Sentinel, I'm yours, only yours and I'm safe. I need Race, please, I need to talk to Race, okay?" He repeated his soothing assurances and finally watched as the Sentinel persona suddenly faded, Race Keegan leeching back into the eyes.

"Damn, what happened?" Race frowned, his voice tightening again, "Your vitals spiked, you were frightened –"

(_No Sentinel, down boy_) "No, I was beside myself with joy" Gage corrected. "When that wall collapsed in the trench I spotted the markings and knew I'd just found myself the biggest temple ever discovered at an alien site."

"It's a major discovery?" Race guessed.

Gage pulled free of his hold with a whoop and actually did a little jig of glee, watched by his bemused Sentinel. "Major, it's _the_ discovery of any lifetime! It's the Tomb of Tutenkhamun, KV5, the Dead Sea Scrolls." Seeing Race's blank expression he explained, "We've found what appear to be small, religious sites at most of the excavations, but nothing absolutely conclusive. But this thing – if I'm right, and I _know_ I'm right – is the Vatican of the alien world, their St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, the Statue of Christ over Rio de Janero, the Dome of the Rock, Mecca, Angkor Wat…"

"I get it." Race cut off the litany. Taking a deep breath, firmly quieting the Sentinel, he nodded. "Okay, get back out there and dig it up!"

Chapter IV – The Hunting Of A Dark Guide HSSC PD, Halfway Station… 

Crystal dumped another set of flimsies on Trey's desk before sauntering off to make her usual unauthorised two hour personal phone call to the latest blonde bimbo – could boys be bimbos? – who was her boyfriend. Trey scooped them up and put them in his in tray; Crystal was unfortunately nowhere near as sharp as her name. The PD had hired her as one of the civilians temps because she was a grand-daughter of Ella, the fearsomely efficient, universally adored Personal Secretary of the Captain of Police – who did a far better job of running the PD than he, and consequently had outlasted the last four incumbents of the job. Crystal was pretty and bubbly and chirpy, but unfortunately woke up in a whole new world every three minutes or so.

Trey didn't care a toss. He would willingly marrying Crystal today for all the work she kept giving him, work that kept him safely down here on the Lower Ground Floor, in Juvenile Crimes, far, far away from Homicide on the Seventh Floor where the LEO Commissioner had decided to have his desk.

Escaping from the precinct on that fateful day for "lunch", Trey had gone home and thrown up the contents of his stomach courtesy of a panic attack, but when he'd returned to the PD he'd expected the fuss to be over. What he found was total chaos. Saran Van den Mikhail had decided that he needed to watch the grassroots cops in action and co-opted a spare desk on the Homicide Division floor. He would start a "desk job" the very next day. The Captain of Police was almost fainting with terror, the Commissioner and others having conniptions, the rank and file both suspicious and baffled.

Trey was utterly petrified. Sentinels avoided Halfway Space Station, which was why Blair, Gage and Simon had wangled him a permanent position on the PD there. Sentinels did not cope well Halfway – the harsh, artificial light, constant din of billions of bodies and machinery on the move 24/7, the odour of billions of hygienically dubious bodies, the dry mouth and unpleasant metallic taste you got after breathing recycled air. For Trey it was ideal; for reasons wild-empath-friendly physicians had not been able to ascertain, he suffered from similar reactions to medication that Sentinels did, in the sense that they didn't made him physically ill, but in that they were unpredictable in duration or effect. Medicine that warned: "can cause drowsiness", could either put him out cold or imbue him with narcotic-fuelled euphoria. Suppressants could either work longer than they should or fade out after only a week. He'd doubled his dosage and increased the frequency of the injections. He could only hope it would be enough.

His outstanding success rate with Juvenile Crimes, especially his ability to deal well with child victims of paedophiles, had led him to be permanently kept there instead of going through a rotation of the other divisions as was usual. Juvenile Crimes was the poor relation of HSSC PD, not having the glamour or media-potential for the Captain and Commissioner that Vice or Homicide had. The Anti-Drugs League donated heavily to the Station Traffic division for their efforts against the flow of narcotics. Even robbery was popular after it failed a jewel heist against a diamond-encrusted matron of a Lesser House, who rewarded them with regular donations. In crimes against children, there were all too often no winners, only victims, and such reports made uncomfortable vid-viewing for the public. Although Trey found such work emotionally draining, sometimes devastating, he was driven by his own nightmare to protect as many as he could, but right now he was desperately thankful that "Juvie" was shoved away in a glorified sub-basement. If he was careful, he need never even meet Saran Van den Mikhail.

Used to a daily diet of calm, controlled, _dull_ meetings, Saran realised suddenly that the unfamiliar feeling in his stomach each morning was _anticipation_. He was having fun. He hadn't lied when he fed the Captain of Police that line about wanting to gauge the reaction of the rank and file officers about new proposed legislation being considered by the IFP Senate, Parliament and Juristconsulate - it just wasn't going to happen for a couple of years. Neither the Captain of Police nor Commissioner could attend him every second, nor did they have any minders they could lumber him with, as budget cuts instituted by themselves had pared police personnel both LEO and civilian to the bone. Hoist by their petard, they had been foiled before they began.

With few exceptions the vast majority of division Captains had started off as harness bulls working their way up through the ranks and thus knew how the real world worked, not politically ambitious desk-warmers seeking a high profile route to Mandarin Minor Grade level, the next step up after Captain of Police. After the first few days, since he also wore his chained snow-leopard spirit guide badge of Bondless Sentinel status, the cops twigged that they didn't even have to draw the unwelcome attention of superiors by approaching him. Any wanting to express their views simply chatted away to each other in the corner in the knowledge that Saran could pick them up. The Captain of Homicide was a street veteran, whom Saran had already earmarked for promotion, long overdue since, not being one of the CoP's cronies, the man's career had stalled. A frown dinted his forehead thoughtfully. The Captain of Juvenile was a desk-warming crony, and their success rate stats had remained adequate but unimproved for the past few years, mostly because of the work of a few dedicated officers who toiled 24/7 to maintain the status quo. Saran decided that he would take a stroll down there and undertake a little exploration of the department that the Chief of Police – CoP - was so eager for him not to notice….

**Rainier University car park, Cascade, Earth…**

_(Oh no, not now_!) Blair turned the key again, but the Volvo wasn't having it. Chewing his lip, Sandburg tried to calm his breathing, giving the car a few moments so he didn't flood the engine. The old Internal Combustion ground cars had enjoyed a brief fad about seventy years earlier. They were dirt cheap to run, the only reason Blair could afford one, but extremely volatile.

This time the Volvo started and he slowly chugged away at a crawl, cursing his folly. He'd crammed everything carelessly in his backpack that morning, intending to take his phial of suppressant at lunch, only to open his backpack and his fingers touch an ominous, damp stickiness. Recovering the phial from the base of his backpack revealed the crack where the suppressant had leaked out and he'd spent the rest of the afternoon in quiet hysteria until he'd been able to reasonably leave. He checked his watch as he went. The suppressant was gradually fading and would disappear altogether any time soon.

The problem with using suppressants, for both Sentinels and empaths, was the "rebound effect". If a Sentinel or empath used suppressants more or less continually, then suddenly stopped taking them for any reason, their abilities "bounced back" much more strongly than before, like a spring compressed in someone's palm that was abruptly released and went all over the place. Admittedly it only lasted a few days before evening out, but for those few days the Sentinel/empath was "broadcasting" his or her respective Sentinel mental signal or empath pheromone musk at a much greater level than before. The only way to avoid the rebound was to gradually decrease dosage, like the person gradually opening their palm and letting the spring de-compress bit by bit. If Blair did not replace his lost dosage, his body would start pumping out pheromone-laden musk scent like a heavy-metal music station suddenly turned to top volume – even a weak Sentinel, never mind the Dark Sentinel he knew to be in Cascade, would scent him a dozen blocks away.

Abruptly the car lurched, throwing him sharply forward, then veered to the kerb and shuddered to a halt with a definite finality that told Blair it wasn't going to move until after receiving a visit from a mechanic. Blair checked his watch then anxiously got out of the car. The huge warehouse in the old business district was all he could afford, but the neighbourhood could only be described as unsavoury. Blair shared his warehouse with rats the size of Great Danes and there were innumerable drug labs, chop shops, sweatshops, porn factories and brothels in every other building. Once there Blair felt very little alarm, for he had nothing worth stealing bar his already very out of date laptop whilst most of his criminal "neighbours" drove an expensive Lexus XXX Super-skiff and could hardly stand up for the weight of the gold they wore. The walk from his car back home though, was an entirely different matter. It necessitated perambulating some of the most deserted, darkest back streets of Cascade, the sort of journey only someone heavily armoured or desperate would undertake on foot.

Glancing at his watch again, Blair heaved the backpack over his shoulder, doing up the front of his battered rain mac. Carefully he removed his combined watch/wristcom and his vidphone and secreted the miniaturised items in his waistband seam in the little pockets he'd made for just that purpose. Into the palm of his hand he glued a small, dull disc, coloured to match his skin so it could not be seen with a brief, first glance. He had no choice. He must already be "leaking", and if he was unlucky and the Sentinel was abroad, he might pick it up. Walking quickly but with his head high as if confident, he left the Volvo.

Agitated, growling, the panther appeared on the hood of his old blue and white truck as Jim crossed the PD parking garage. Fortunately there was no one in front of him to see the look of shock that flickered across his face at something they couldn't see. All the hairs on his nape prickled as, next to the panther, the wolf, much more solid this time, also arrived. The Dark Guide was in peril. Without speech, both spirit animal guides nevertheless managed to convey the succinct command: _move your ass, Ellison_.

As casually as he dared, Jim got into the truck and drove sedately out of the parking garage, waiting until he was out of sight of the precinct before slowing down. The wolf and panther suddenly appeared in the cab with him, sat side by side on their haunches, tails tucked around their legs. The panther growled sharply and Jim obediently set off at a fast clip. At the first set of lights his intent to go straight ahead was halted as the panther snarled.

"Left?"

Silence.

"Right?"

Approving growl.

He drove quickly but expertly, manoeuvring down tight alleyways and narrow roads according to the panther's directional snarls or growls. Being prepared as the good little Dark Angel he was, he had memorised the map of Cascade as it used to be, and the present day sections of the city that were now re-occupied, and realised that they were heading towards the warehouse district, where 90 of the drug deals in town went down. What on earth was his Dark Guide doing here? Memory of a thousand pessimistic trauma counsellors supplied multiple-choice unpleasant answers. Drug addiction was one of the least things the Dark Guide could have turned to in order to obliterate the memories of Alexandra Barnes. Shooting down a side street parallel to some old factories, he did not glance through the gap to the road going the other side, and did not spot the dark green Volvo parked askew near the kerb.

The four dark lumps had spotted their prey and watched for several minutes before beginning to shadow the youth with the curly brown hair to ensure he was alone. He looked poor, but his backpack might have a vidphone or wristcom, and if he had nothing material, there were other ways to have fun. Lacking a very muscular build, he was only medium height and slender, and even under the mac, they glimpsed what appeared to be a buff pair of buns. Vicious grins creased the features of creatures that were devoid of humanity except in the purely biological sense. They would take it in turns, three would hold him down, while the fourth raped him. At the corner of a particular alleyway they materialised, as if out of the ground. One blocked the entry to the alley, the second blocked the way behind, the third the way in front, the last to his right. So intent were all five on the impending crisis, that they did not hear the distant rumble of an approaching engine, or hear that engine cut out. The four predators were so intent on their victim that they forgot the importance of remaining aware of their surroundings in case something even nastier than they decided to muscle in.

The Dark Guide smiled with equal viciousness as Blair Sandburg, eagerly this time, sprinted to the hindbrain and let the Dark Side of the Force come to the fore. The problem with being a criminal was that they were snakes, and the problem with being a snake was that one day, the small, furry animal they trapped in a corner could turn out to be a mongoose. He balanced himself lightly on the balls of his feet; there would be no Hollywood telegraphing of moves or three of them standing back while one tried to batter him to the ground, all four would jump at once.

Blair estimated distance and methods of attack - the one behind was too eager, he was inching closer than the others; the one on the right had his hand in his pocket, clearly someone who relied too much on weaponry. The one in front of him was the leader, another error in positioning, for Blair simply had to watch him to know when they would attack. As if on cue, the one in front of him tensed, hunching his shoulders and shifting his stance.

Jim slid out of the truck and everything was instantly forgotten as he took his first breath of the cold night air, rich, cloying, sweet with musk, lots and lots of musk. For an instant he teetered on the edge of zone out, until a painful nip to his calf made him yelp. The wolf looked up at him scornfully. He moved forward, speedily but in utter silence, all senses alert. He was barely aware of the wolf and panther near him, pacing him, for every breath he took brought more and more of that wonderful scent to him.

Blair cursed inside his head. As he had hoped, he'd rendered one attacker _hors de combat_ in their initial attack. The one on his right lay in the gutter, the blood pooling underneath his head indicating it would be a long time, if ever, before he got up again. But the other three were more wary now that their worm had turned. He had only seconds before they got over their uncertainty and attacked again, more brutally than before. Of more importance to Blair, however, was his unsuppressed state. His heart was thumping, pulse jumping, breathing elevated. Adrenaline only burnt the suppressants out of his system even faster, which meant that at his current rate of adrenaline production they were almost, if not totally, gone already.

He ducked as the remaining three lunged simultaneously, Behind missing altogether, but Front managed to strike his face, sending him staggering into the road, just missing tripping over the unconscious/dead Fourth. But that was as far as the trio got; the night air was rent by the howl of a wolf and the hideous shriek of an angry cat. The one in the alleyway quite literally never knew what hit him. A single blow from behind snapped his neck and sent the corpse to smash against the wall. As Front and Behind whirled to deal with this new threat, the Dark Guide moved, lashing out not with fist but the rigid edge of his hand into Front's throat, crushing the larynx and setting him to the blacktop to choke to death. Behind was dead from a crushed skull a second later.

Even as the last two fell, dying, the dazed Dark Guide was snatched into a strong embrace, gasping from the adrenaline rush as his face was hugged against a rock-hard chest, a chest from which emanated urgent, wordless, soft croons of comfort. One large finger wrapped an amber curl of hair around it while the others made little stroking motions across his scalp. The Dark Guide swayed toward the shielding mental warmth of the bright empathic beacon, drawn to it, craving it, needing it, barely aware of the large form moving it's other hand to tilt his head back to expose his throat –

Blair Sandburg reasserted himself and, for one frozen moment, found himself clasped with a strong hand supporting his nape, about to be lowered to the floor…pinned….claimed.

A thousand Alex-induced nightmares exploded in front of his mind's eye, and in wild panic he brought up his hand, slapping the palm against the cheek of the larger shape holding him.

Jim screamed as liquid fire tormented every nerve ending for a single microsecond, jerking his body away from his prize. He fell to his hands and knees, ears ringing, spots dancing wildly in front of his eyes, pain shooting through his body. Dimly he was aware of racing, fading footsteps, then he was alone in the night, gasping, on his knees.

For an instant he concentrated on breathing in and out, sucking air into his hurting lungs. Pushing up against the wall he leaned against it. A micro-disruptor, obviously, and highly illegal – they delivered a debilitating, agonising shock to every nerve in the body, which was why their only approved use was in field resuscitation kits or in hospitals as a last ditch measure to kick start the body. The guide had only used the micro-disruptor for a split second, but it would be ten minutes before Jim was capable of doing a slow walk, never mind run, by which time the slight breeze coming off the bay would have dissipated the musk of the empath, and, assuming he lived close by, the empath would have been able to reach somewhere safe enough to promptly inject a mega dose of suppressants. Swaying slightly as his disturbed nervous system finally settled down, Jim let out a snarl of frustration, clenched his fists helplessly…he had been _so close!_ Underneath the musk there had been other, gradually increasing pheromones that every Dark Sentinel gene in his body recognised and howled for…the beginning of Bonding Heat. The suppressants would negate that with the tell-tale musk, but who knew how long the Guide had been on the edge of Bonding Heat, simmering just under the surface? Aware he was digging his nails into his palms in anger, he eased his grip, becoming aware of a tension around one finger. Puzzled, he raised his hand and stiffened as the dim street-lamp glinted weakly off strands of hair. When his body spasmed from the disruptor hit he had obviously torn the curl from the roots. Slowly, Jim smiled – strands of hair. DNA. All Oligarchy worlds had DNA profiles on every citizen, for without one it was as impossible to function as it had been without a social security number back in the 20th Century. It would take him all of ten seconds to run this through the PD database. Quickly, he set off back.

Gasping, Blair ran into the warehouse, slamming the heavy metal door and throwing the bolts. Dumping his backpack he yanked off his coat and shirt with total disregard for the icy dankness of the place, went to his little micro-fridge and yanked out two phials of suppressant, injecting both one after the other. They made him feel slightly nauseous, but the dosage would protect against him being tracked. His scalp stung where the hair follicles had been brutally removed and he allowed himself a second to rub it, but time was of the essence.

Worst case scenario was that the Dark Sentinel, and Blair had no doubt his saviour/captor was a Dark Sentinel, had immediate access to a DNA database, in which case Blair had only hours to escape. The database would list his address as Rainier, but his office had documentation listing his home address. If he wanted to avoid being caught, he'd better be off-world by dawn. Thankful that he'd decided to risk carrying his laptop in his backpack, he quickly gathered all his essentials, his peripatetic childhood with Naomi teaching him how to travel light but well prepared. Just before 11:00 pm he left the warehouse, after burning anything that might incriminate or expose the Underground Railroad or give clues to his destination. Slipping past the other warehouses he walked back into Cascade city via the waterfront along the bay, accurately guessing that the sea breeze would make it too cold for evil, like the four examples that had accosted him.

By the time he got to the Space Port it was 1:30 am and he was nearly blue with cold. Buying the first available first-class carriage ticket to Luna City 7, he bought himself a coffee, then went to the men's washroom. Slipping into a cubicle, he pulled out a miniature single-hole punch and _downgraded _the plastic token to Second-class, changing the destination to a through trip to Halfway Station in the process, a trick he'd learned from the old _Stainless Steel Rat_ books by Harry Harrison. According to the book's character Jim DiGriz, officialdom wouldn't believe that a person would willingly lose money, so by downgrading the ticket after buying a higher priced one guaranteed that even if the tampering was detected, the bureaucrats would simply assume the issuing machine had been faulty. Amazingly, the 20th Century author had been right, for the Underground Railroad had got many wild empaths off-world by simply purchasing slightly higher priced tickets then downgrading them; the ruse had never been exposed.

At 3:00 am, he was watching Earth recede below him. He shivered. His flight would expose him as an empath but he had no choice. Now he had to decide whether to find some far-flung frontier world to hide on, or whether to go deeper into the IFP civilized worlds and hide there. It all depended on what Trey could fake for him in the ID line. He rubbed his face wearily; Gage's secret tight-beam message that he had been caught and Bonded had been a blow to Simon, Blair, but especially Trey who had been closest to the archaeologist. Gage would still do anything he could to help the Underground Railroad, and wouldn't hesitate to assist Blair in any way, but Blair didn't want to try and contact his friend unless it was unavoidable. He knew little of Gage's Sentinel, Race Keegan, except that he was the idle rich son of some Lesser House, but the Sentinel might deal brutally with Gage if he caught him helping wild empaths. Hugging his backpack on his knees, he let his eyes close, just for a moment.

**Rainier University, Earth, next morning…**

Jim had made it back to Cascade Central Precinct, finding it suitably bereft of personnel, particularly curious Major Crime people. Accessing the database was no problem as it was simply assumed he was doing some work on a case. Carefully, he fed the strands into the machine, ordering the computer system to filter out any alien DNA, including his own or any that had belonged to the four perps who'd tried to jump the Guide. Seventeen seconds later, a 3D holograph appeared on screen: Blair Jacob Sandburg, Teaching Fellow of Anthropology at Rainier University, currently working on his doctorate on "Closed Societies: LEO personnel". Jim touched the screen with his fingertips as the head rotated around. Gentian blue wide-set eyes, gently softer than his own laser-blue chips of hard ice, gazed blankly out. Ringlets of different coloured amber, bronze, walnut, chestnut, chocolate and golden brown hair reached to his shoulders, and Jim's fingers itched, remembering caressing the satin-soft strands. Unless cosmetically altered, no human had hair that was the same uniform shade or colour; Jim wanted to spend hours combing each hair, watching light glint of gold, rubbing chocolate between his fingers, wrapping amber curls around his fingers…

Shaking his head sharply as he realised he was perilously close to zone out, Jim returned his attention to the Holograph. Blair's skin was dusky gold – his mother, Naomi Sandburg, was a Jewess by birth and still listed it as her "official" religion, though non-practising. Blair's father was unknown, but the beautiful hue of skin, that rich honey gold only mulattoes seemed able to achieve, also hinted at possibly black, American Indian or Polynesian ancestry in the distant past. His nose was slightly broadened at the end, over a wide, smiling mouth, giving him an expression of boyish charm and youthful enthusiasm.

Boyish indeed – he was just twenty-five years old, several years younger than Jim, but he had been at Rainier since he was fourteen on some geek genius scholarship. He spoke forty-two languages and computers loved him. Jim's eyes narrowed as he accessed more records, sending the details to his own terminal at his desk. Blair Sandburg was the Dark Guide, _ipso facto_, he was the Dark Guide slave to and eventual murderer of, Alexandra Barnes. Yet his medical records were clean. There was no hint of treatment for any traumatic physical and sexual injuries that Alex had inflicted, nor any record of counsellor visits or therapy sessions. The sum total of such notes was a brief notation that Blair had returned to Rainier "run down" due to spending summer recess caring for his seriously ill mother. The summer recess coincided with the time that Alex Barnes had had her slave, and Blair had returned a fortnight after the psychopathic woman had been killed. Jim was willing to bet that Naomi Sandburg, wherever she was, was as fit as fiddle and always had been.

Jim frowned and checked his watch: 0400 hours, and the file's only address for Sandburg was the university. Quickly he made a decision – go home, shower, eat and then get to Rainier. He had no doubt his Guide had already fled or was in the process of doing so, probably off-world, but James Joseph Ellison had an adamantine will, a diamond determination that he _would have his Dark Guide_, whatever it took, or how long….

To be continued… 

© 2002 C. D. Stewart

_ NB – Yes, Charles Darwin, "founder of evolution" really did steal the idea. He had been working on a "natural selection" idea for 20 years, but Darwin simply wasn't a writer. His prose was confused, long-winded, turgid, verbose, tedious and unreadable. Then in the 1850s, he was sent a manuscript by a young naturalist named Alfred Russell Wallace who was seeking a patron to help fund his expeditions overseas and thought that Charles Darwin, wealthy, famous and influential would be ideal. Concise, clear, informative yet easily understood by the layman, Wallace's work expounded "A Theory of Evolution": "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest", in elegant simplicity. By now middle-aged, the temptation was just too much for Darwin as he read the much younger man's work. While Wallace was overseas, Darwin presented the paper as a "collaboration" between himself and Wallace, the unknown youngster being subsequently eased out of the credits with the help of Darwin's friends, such as Hooker and Lyall, and family who closed ranks around him. Today, Darwin would be doomed, but in Victorian society class distinctions were rigid: Darwin was an old, wealthy, influential and eminently respected middle-class scientist, whereas Wallace was young, working-class and poor. Exposing Darwin meant ruin and being blacklisted by powerful Darwinist allies, keeping his mouth shut ensured a lifetime of easier funding and patronage, plus having one of Victoriana's most eminent scientists "over a barrel". Unsurprisingly, Wallace became complicit in the theft of his own work. Charles Darwin's eventually published "Origin of Species" (1859) is in large parts unreadable due to the atrocious phraseology – for a detailed description of the theft, see the book "A Delicate Arrangement" by Arnold C Brackman. _


	3. Chapters 5 & 6

_See Disclaimers, etc, in Chapters I-II. NB – the song "Luna City 7" was partially sung by "Dave Lister" (actor Craig Charles) on the BBC sci-fi comedy show Red Dwarf (in astronomy, there is no such thing as a red dwarf star)._

Chapter V – Guides Lost… **HSSC PD, "Juvie" division level…**

Trey managed to not give into the cough that made his throat hurt. Station Sniffle, the colloquial name given to the minor "cold type" infection, was common aboard space stations and those who served long-term aboard A- or B-class ships where the air was largely recycled. Normally it was irritating and easily disposed of with a bottle of medicine, but Trey hurriedly tried to finish his report so he could reasonably leave, his unpredictable reaction to medication, on top of the fact he was injecting double doses of suppressant, making him nervous.

Unfortunately the CoJC – Captain of Juvenile Crimes – was a crony of the CoP - Captain of Police, a political appointee looking for a way up the ladder of success. Like the CoP, he had been a nervous wreck for the past three weeks that Saran Van den Mikhail had been resident, and had thus instigated a flurry of actual efficiency never seen during his incumbency. The problem for Trey was that no sick leave was allowed unless you were dead and could prove it, so a minor case of Station Sniffle had resulted in a direct order to get his butt in and do some work. However, if he could just type these reports, he could legitimately go "out in the field", safely away from any problems his body might start causing him over mixing suppressants with cold medicine.

Finally hitting the last full-stop, Trey saved the report and sent it to all relevant bureaucratic departments, including the CoJC's desktop, then shucked on his jacket with determination. His watch pinged warning and he quickly ducked into the break room. At 11:00am on the dot, the CoJC waddled out of his office, straight down the corridor, spent fifteen minutes in the john, bought the biggest cream cake he could off the donut cart with an extra large mocha, then waddled back to his office where he spent the next hour or so reading the cyber-sports pages, pretending to read police reports. As a figure went past the door, Trey's throat tightened again; aware the scratchiness would not dissipate, Trey fed a few galacs into the vending machine and got a cup of tepid water that was in direct violation of the vending machine's advertised: "ice-cold refreshing spring water". But it eased his throat. He would hang around here until the CoJC went back into his office and then abscond and do something useful instead.

Saran resisted the urge to rub his forehead again as the elevator took them down to the "Juvie" level, aware of Madeley shifting nervously beside him – the man was so taut that if Saran had poured starch over him he could have used him as a fence-post. Despite the nagging discomfort of his sudden headache and that irritating sub-vocal whine that intermittently attacked his ears, Saran felt some amusement. It had not been a good week for Madeley. After a fortnight of Saran roaming unchecked, the Mayor, CoP, Commissioner and Station Manager's nerves were all shot, so at the beginning of the third week they had been able to "spare" an officer, Madeley, to act as Saran's "aide".

_(Read, "minder", spy and warning to the lower orders not to deviate from the party line,_) Saran knew. Saran had no problems with Madeley, he'd dealt with more practised obstructionists in his cradle. Madeley was another political type, who'd sidled in through the Graduate Recruitment Programme straight at officer level rather than going to the Academy and working his way up from patrolman. He'd spent most of his time as a flunkie in the Commissioner's office and as such was a lamb to the kebab shop when it came to dealing with Saran. The families of the Oligarchy, especially the High Houses, had not held onto and increased their wealth and power by being ineffectual ditherers or being unable to see through those trying to con them.

Cheerfully Saran had had Madeley searching basement files and evidence lock-up, piling his arms high with reports and running him all over the building searching for this, that and the other. Since Madeley couldn't be in a dozen places at once, Saran's "unauthorised" interaction with those who actually did the work continued unfettered. However, this morning had not gotten off to a good start. Saran had woken in the early hours with an aggravating headache and that damn whine that disappeared every time he tried to get a fix on it. On top of that, the vending machines on the top three floors had conked out simultaneously along with half the computers when a workman did something to cable A instead of cable B. Saran shook his head – all the technological wonders available to the space-faring human, and everything still ground to a halt because some twit cut through the wrong wire.

As Madeley fussed with the large, apparently temperamental vending machine just outside the holding area, Saran remembered his personal pledge to visit all the divisions that made the CoP nervous. "Juvie" had been at the top of the list, but he'd never gotten to it. Reluctantly he decided against an inspection with Madeley hanging on his coat tails and scaring the natives, but made a mental note to raise his disapproval of the locale. Juvenile Crimes was certainly far from glamorous, but in Saran's view it should be _the_ best-funded section in _any_ law enforcement agency. Juvenile Crimes should be situated in offices like palaces, able to afford state-of-the-art equipment and have access to unlimited funding with staff paid wages like that of movie stars. This was a sub-basement in all but name, and not a glorified one at that.

Saran eyed the dull, cracked, cream painted walls with disdain, wandering casually along and ignoring where Madeley was locked in a battle of wits with the vending machine, which from the sound of it, the vending machine was winning. What few posters there were tacked up advertising counselling for parents of abused children, or other services that worked hand in hand with JC, such as Youth Justice, Social Services, Foster Care Agency and so forth were all old, curling and in some cases out of date. What PCs, vidlinks, tight-beam and other technology he could glimpse in offices all had the scraped, worn look of hand-me-down equipment. Even the office lighting was subdued, someone obviously deciding to save money by setting the diffusion on "economy", making the place dwell in a perpetual twilight.

About to go back, Saran paused as he smelled something. He sniffed, but it was elusive. He enhanced his olfactory abilities carefully, for some of the stuff around here looked so worn that a frayed wire or fuse could turn it into an inferno, but the smell was not acrid burning. It was elusive, faint, and, like that damned whine, kept fading in and out, but it was strangely pleasant, refreshingly tart, like homemade lemon ice cream. With a shrug, Saran meandered on, ignoring Madeley's slightly panicked, " 'Sir?' " as the man vacillated between following Saran or getting Saran's coffee.

In the 21st Century the link between childhood problems such as abuse, poverty, lack of education, family breakdown and adult crime had been clearly defined. All the other divisions such as Vice and Homicide would have a lot less to investigate if budding criminality could be nipped before it took root in a child. All IFP and Oligarchy worlds had mandatory brain scans for year old infants to detect the sort of "minor" brain abnormalities that, undetectable in the 20th Century, led the infant to grow into a sociopath, psychopath or serial killer. Those children were operated upon to correct the problems, but humans were spreading ever further into the distant reaches of space, and even on the most technologically advanced worlds, there were those who suffered a family breakdown or lived in a low income home. Most terrible of all were the abuse victims because, just as with rape, the victim was 90 more likely to be abused by someone they knew well, a relative or family friend, than some "flashing mac" wearing stranger who opportunistically grabbed them. Those sorts of cases were often more easily dealt with, but in most cases the abuser was a "pillar of the community", an eminently respectable and apparently loving person who gave no indication of their perversion. In all too many instances, the abuser was himself or herself the adult survivor of child abuse, in some ways as much a victim as the child. In such situations, there was no winner, only destroyed families or damaged individuals.

Absently following the scent, but still mainly focussed on the JC bullpen, Saran could easily tell from the desks which officers were "dedicated" and which were just serving their rotation. The former were crammed with the latest information, help line numbers, judicial rulings affecting juvenile crime and other such paraphernalia, plus some things like interactive counselling kits that they had to have purchased at their own expense, for the PD certainly wouldn't fund them whilst under the direction of the current CoP. Saran drifted along, setting his mind to "neutral", looking the place over, vaguely noting that if he concentrated on the smell, the headache receded.

Apparently the vending machine had vanquished Madeley, and hearing a similar hum, Saran headed for another break room, slipping inside, automatically sensory-scanning the man who stood, turned half away from him, sipping water. Just above medium height, very slender, with thick, soot-black hair, but the very pale, pearls and milk white skin that suggested Celtic or Scandinavian ancestry somewhere. He wasn't skinny or wimpy, but nevertheless there was a sense of frailty about him, of vulnerability. The tangy, intermittent smell also appeared to be coming from him.

The other jumped as he realised someone had entered the room and turned, his smile dying as he focussed on the newcomer. Distantly, as if a detached observer watching himself, Saran catalogued the pale honey-brown eyes, the snub nose and the white, slightly crooked teeth in a mouth whose natural state was smiling. A detective shield was attached to the belt of his faded black denim jeans and a simple white shirt rumpled under the mid-thigh length brown jacket, but these were insignificant observations. The youth's eyes widened, and he was a youth, certainly 20 years junior to Saran's forty-five if not more. His heartbeat spiked and his pulse soared, but that only made the tart scent stronger, regular instead of fading in and out. Aware of a distant, irritating buzz in his ears and the approaching footsteps of Madeley only peripherally, Saran somehow found himself gently stroking the younger man's hair, rubbing his thumb across the top of one ear as the youth tilted his head into the caress.

Trey was trapped, gaze locked on a pair of glowing emeralds that seemed to draw him in. The world was suddenly utterly silent, the cup of water making no noise as it slid from his numb fingers, splashing onto the plastic floor. Gazes locked on each other, they were oblivious.

"Sir?" Madeley surged into the room, freezing as he spotted the bizarre tableau in front him. "What…?"

At that point, Saran's eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he toppled backwards.

Snapping suddenly from his ensorcelled state, Trey sprang and managed to grab him, dropping to his knees as the dead weight inevitably pulled him down. Madeley, gaped open mouthed like a guppy, frozen stupidly. "Get the Medical Officer!" Trey barked furiously.

Within ten minutes Saran, still out cold, was laid in the Precinct's medical bay surrounded by the Police Surgeon, Precinct Medical Officer and whole host of panicking people. The Captain of Police hovered like melodramatic maiden, wringing his hands and sweating, muttering contradictory orders that no one paid any attention to. Easing to the back of the crowd, Trey felt icily cold to his extremities, and as Saran began to twitch, he eased out of the room and hurried back to the Juvie floor, frantic with fear.

The cold medicine must have allowed at least some of his musk to get through, enough to focus Saran's Sentinel senses at least. Spreading the word and letting the commotion distract his colleagues, he slipped out of the building through the parking garage and into the main boulevard of the Promenade shopping mall, manoeuvring his way towards home. He didn't have much time. He'd seen the speculative glances that Madeley was throwing at him as they'd rushed Saran to the Medical Bay, and it didn't take rocket science to factor in Saran's Bondless Sentinel state and come up with the right reason as to why he walked up to a complete stranger and began to fondle his hair!

Nor could Trey expect any help from his fellow officers. He'd avoided having a partner who might guess his secret, and voluntarily remaining in Juvie was guaranteed not to make him a popular choice. While not standoffish, he'd maintained a certain distance between himself and his colleagues, so had not close friends. Besides, even if he had, they couldn't stand up to the LEO Commissioner himself. Saran would get exactly what he wanted

(_Not if I can help it!_) Terror lent wings to his feet and he abandoned discretion for speed.

Saran came back to consciousness as abruptly as he'd left it, sitting bolt upright. He brushed away the Medical Officer and silenced everyone with a barked command. Glaring around he demanded, "What the hell happened?"

The Captain of Homicide stepped forward. "There's a design flaw in the docking rings, Sir. The holding clamps resonate and gradually work their way loose. They set up a sort of reverberation feedback loop that causes headaches, insomnia, depression, irritability and, in severe cases, blackouts. We have a warning system so we can repair them before they affect people, but as a Sentinel you must have picked up the problem before any one else could." He nodded apologetically, "It's another reason why Sentinels avoid Halfway."

"I'm not surprised." Saran stood upright, wincing as the intermittent whine began again. "It's Outer Ring, Berth Four, the sixth docking clamp from the left. Would you _please_ arrange to shut the thing off!"

"Yessir!" Bobbing his head like a dancing rabbit, the Captain of Police waved his hands at the general crowd, and the Captain of Homicide obediently left.

"There was a man in the break room…" Saran frowned as he remembered the elusive scent and the youth. Suddenly it became very, very necessary for him to know about that man. "Who is he?"

"Detective Trey Logan, Juvenile Crimes!" Madeley blurted. "He's….."

Heads turned as it became apparent that Detective Logan was not present.

"He brought me here?" Saran noted that the whine abruptly terminated.

Madeley gulped, looking terrified. "Uh, yes, Sir….I mean…uh…"

"What else?"

"You seemed to know him, Sir?"

Saran pinned Madeley to the spot with one cold glare. "Know him? Why would you think that?"

Madeley went grey, but managed to stammer out, "Y-y-y-ou….you were s-s-stroking his hairrr!"

Saran blinked. For a moment no one breathed. Something raw and atavistic inside Saran, finally finding itself being taken note of at long last, began jumping up and down and yelling.

"_I want him._" Saran's voice was an arctic whisper that sliced through the room.

There was a mad scramble to get out the room and obey.

**Hyperion, excavated temple of the aliens, underground chamber…**

Race walked through the wide, arched underground tunnel to the main chamber, nodding to people as he went past. Unadulterated glee had been the only way to describe Gage's attitude. That the aliens had religion had caused yet another fierce academic debate, for theology had been something that was believed – no pun intended – to be solely the province of humans. The aliens' apparent acceptance of the existence of the Divine had caused all sorts of furore.

Unfortunately, other than the fact that the aliens had a religion, nothing else was known. The excavated temple had areas where objects had obviously once been stood, but the removal of them was just one more boost to Gage's theory of deliberate abandonment as opposed to the gradual extinction. Assuming they had left voluntarily in a mass, organised exodus, the aliens would certainly have taken any important objects of veneration with them.

Frowning, Race realised that Gage was not in the main chamber and his eyes narrowed purposefully. Unlike the smaller examples, this temple had been discovered to stretch for many acres, each newly uncovered wall and passageway presenting yet more unique inscriptions hitherto unknown. Gage had shown a disturbing tendency to wander off down these new exploration avenues with blithe disregard for the dangers of cave in, booby traps or other nastiness, despite Race's firm injunction that he was to go nowhere alone.

Venturing further in down a side tunnel, Race picked up his Guide's solitary heartbeat in a part of the temple no one else was in. The tunnel here was particularly rich in bright coloured inscriptions, seemingly almost as important as the main tunnel and the main chamber, presumably leading somewhere nearly if not just as important. Turning a sharp right-angle corner, he walked out into a large, high domed chamber that appeared at quick glance to resemble an Egyptian pyramid, covered in brilliantly coloured pictographic inscriptions that Gage was peering at with wonderment, utterly, completely oblivious to anything going on around him.

Torn between admiration and a desire put Butler over his knee and administer chastisement, Race entered the chamber. The floor was highly polished white marble with golden streaks. Instead of a pharoah's sarcophagus, there was a rectangular pool of crystal clear water in the centre, slightly rippling, indicating that it was fed by some underground stream that kept the water freshly circulating and not stagnated. To the right of the pool was a horizontal, rectangular obsidian slab, supported by four "legs" and resembling a large stone table, devoid of any markings.

"Guide."

Jerked from his reverie, Gage turned to see his Sentinel standing with folded arms looking at him sternly. "Hi!"

"I told you to go nowhere alone." Race tamped down firmly on the bit of him that went mushy when his Guide gave him that innocent look.

"I only came in for quick look, honest." Gage appeased.

"Uh-uh." Realising he couldn't keep the stern act up, Race turned his attention to the carvings. "Any revelations?"

"Nope." Gage shook his head cheerfully. "They're unique to this site and...that's it." He shrugged, "The funny thing is that somehow you get the impression that if you just _looked _at them long enough, you'd start to understand."

Absently, Gage began to peer at the markings again, before looking up at Race's chuckle. He recognised the glint in Race's eyes. "No, Race."

"No what?" Race's expression was innocent but he was somehow much closer than he had been.

"We can't bond here!"

"Why?"

"We- w-w-we'll contaminate the site," Gage whispered, but Race could see the anticipation, the wanting, in him.

"Come here, Guide." Reaching out a hand, Race cupped the back of his Guide's neck, parting his own lips slightly to drink in the taste of his scent as he drew Gage firmly to him.

Wrapping his arms tight around Gage, Race closed his eyes in contentment as Gage mirrored the gesture, burying his face in Race's neck, allowing the Sentinel to breathe in his musk. For a long moment they stood together, hands making gently circling motions, basking in the union of their minds. Out of the corner of his eye, the Sentinel saw dancing dust motes waft in the breeze, coalescing together, seeming to make diaphanous shapes that encroached. He growled a low warning and sent the psychic retort: _MINE!_, and the ghostly outlines seemed to retreat. Tightening his clasp, he suddenly pushed his Guide against the stone table, no longer content with the gentle bonding but wanting to emphasise his possession. Pinning his Guide down he bit his throat, hearing the gasp of pleasure/pain, then pushed aside the irritating cloth to mark his chest and torso with his teeth, sharp little bites that branded what was his.

Gage gasped as he was crushed against the marble slab by the full weight of his Sentinel, his barriers completely down, uncertain why the Sentinel had switched from a passive bonding to an aggressive one. Allowing his Sentinel's enhanced senses of touch and taste full access to his torso, even as his mind allowed his Sentinel to meld with him fully, Gage began to make soothing noises and send reassuring emotions to his Sentinel. There was no danger here, no threat, no Bondless one wanting to steal what belonged to Race. As he telepathed Keegan's personal name, the Sentinel paused, slightly less aggressive, his fierce grip lessening and his empathic force against Gage's own mind lessening. _(Yes, that's the way_). He continued to soothe mentally with empathic reassurance and physically by gently stroking his Sentinel's face with his fingertips, rubbing his thumb across Race's cheek. Gage belonged only to Race, no one else, ever. There was no challenger to Race's claiming of his Guide, it was all right, it was safe, there was no threat.

Race slowly came back from the void of the bonding, tilting his head to one side carefully. He considered continuing the bond, it would only take a moment to strip his Guide so he could be mapped, nuzzled, tasted properly, but there were others too near who might intrude, ones who had no right to see his Guide so vulnerable. Gage lay still, submissive, waiting for his decision. He would not object if Race decided to continue, but Race knew that the stone under Gage must be uncomfortable, and he himself was no lightweight to be squishing him against unyielding stone. Besides, there was the reason he'd come to find Gage in the first place. Reluctantly he slid off the stone slab, hauling Gage to his feet with an arm around his waist, unwilling to relinquish contact just yet. Gage buttoned his shirt back up, knowing he would have bruising bite marks from his throat to waist by the night, before placing one hand on Race's arm and rubbing it gently.

Race pulled Gage close again. "I'm sorry."

Gage blinked. Had Race thought he'd hurt him?" Hey, shush, it's okay. I'm fine."

"No, we're on the next shuttle off-world."

"_What!"_

Race easily held him close as the archaeologist's body jerked in shock and he tried to pull away. Race would not allow Gage to pull away, in any sense, ever. "GAGE!"

Mutinously silent, Gage glared up from the cage of Race's arms. "What?"

"It's Dark Angel stuff. We've got to go to Halfway to see a friend of mine who's also a DA. I promise, Gage, I promise it's only a few days, a week maximum." He titled Gage's chin up with a thumb. "Gage, the temple's been here for thousands of years, and you're already going to be legendary for discovering it. It'll still be here next week. I promise, no more than seven days."

Gage sighed, scuffing a booted toe in the dirt like a bored schoolboy. "Okay, okay, I know. All right, when do we go?"

"Now." Race said apologetically.

Throwing an arm round his Guide's shoulder, the two men walked back to the main entrance of the temple, not noticing the strangely regular pattern of the dust motes drifting together into ghostly shapes, nor the way the pictographs had glowed with a strange brightness as Race and Gage had begun to bond.

HSSC PD Precinct, Juvenile Crimes Division floor, a.k.a Panic Central… 

Within thirty minutes, Saran had everything on Detective Trey Logan. Ignoring the bleating sheep that ran around him, he concentrated on the youth's file, for any clue to where he might have fled to that would help Saran locate him. Logically, the wild empath would attempt to leave Halfway, a plan that was a lot easier to carry out in practice than theory claimed. All permanently inhabited space stations, Halfway more than most, had "Down Below", sub-levels off the main station areas where, like flotsam caught in an eddy of water and washed ashore, the "shadow people" resided: criminals, vagrants, homeless, the poverty-stricken, debtors, the dispossessed, those who did not wish to be found, adventurers, mercenaries, assassins, hitmen, cutthroats and whores. In Down Below, assuming you had the galacs, anything or anyone could be bought, sold, procured, obtained, provided or undertaken.

The first space station ever to be constructed, the initial superstructure of Halfway had been added to and altered over the centuries from it's first days as storage depot and layover for the first human colonists on Mars, through it's emergence as an independent "state" in it's own right, to it's joining the Oligarchy as a commercial concern before being bought outright by one of the High House families, Taisuke.High House Taisuke sold it to High House Ellison, the current owners, who ran it as a very profitable trading post and tourist attraction, "see the beginning of Humanity's Journey Into Space", burbled the high-priced holiday brochures.

The point being that any remotely _accurate_ architectural blueprint of the place resembled nothing so much as a plate of spaghetti that had been thrown against a wall. There were so many lines delineating original construction, then old, supposedly vanished areas under once newer, now also old supposedly vanished areas and "current" inhabitation that making any sense of the thing was nigh on impossible. Which was where theory fell in defeat to practice. In theory, a person entering or leaving Halfway had to pass through one of the passport controls upon disembarking prior to entry, or before entering the airlocks to board whatever shuttle or ship they intended to leave on. In practice, assuming the person desiring to be unnoticed managed to survive a venture to "Down Below" _without_ being mugged and tossed out an airlock without a space suit, he or she could easily vacate Halfway with no one being any the wiser.

It was now 0130 hours plus since Saran's blackout and Trey Logan's disappearance. Less than fifteen minutes after that event, while Saran was coming around, all Trey's bank accounts and credit accounts had been maxed out. By the time the Captain of Police's stooges got to his extremely low rent apartment, it was as empty as Madeley's mind. Trey's weapons, however, had disappeared with him, and Saran had honestly thought the Captain of Police and Station Manger were going to have twin heart attacks at the thought of an armed wild empath "running loose" on Halfway. Saran scowled unconsciously at the image – they acted as if Logan were some rabid dog or mutated freak to be gotten rid of post haste, when he was just a scared young man who had recently, supposedly at any rate, been one of them, a "brother in blue".

Saran swivelled gently in Logan's desk chair. As he had guessed, Trey's desk was one of those belonging to the "dedicated" police officers. Logan's PC carried the tell-tale tight beam that had periodically sent _those_ messages to Saran's comconsole. A tiny secret drawer that Saran's Sentinel touch detected was empty but carried traces of suppressant and was just big enough to contain "emergency" phials of the chemicals. Flicking out his tongue to his forefinger tip, Saran ignored the CoP's look of distaste and identified Rezadrin X, one of the most powerful suppressants available and made illegal two years previously.

The mandatory "Empathy Certificate" was easily to hand in a top drawer and Saran snorted derisively at the rating: 7. Race Keegan's Guide – Gage Butler, the archaeologist, that was it – had also been listed as 7 when he was at least 15, if not more. For all his submission as a Bonded Guide however, Butler had flatly refused to reveal his source of illegal suppressants or phoney Empathy Certificate, and Race had refused to allow any interrogation that might further alienate his reluctant Guide and shatter the strained relationship between the two men – it was the main reason why Race had whisked his Guide away to Hyperion, away from amiable-but-somehow-unpleasant Leo Kessler's persistent suggestions of hypnosis and truth drugs.

Ordering the computer to bring up Logan's case files, Saran read each one with increased approval. Juvenile Crimes' 60 success rate had been shakily maintained since the current administration began on Halfway and initiated the "downsizing" and budget cuts that had so vitiated the Police Department, but Trey Logan had maintained an unprecedented 80 clear-up rate. Many experts were pointing out how Guide-strength empaths tended to have certain talents, an "affinity" for some thing, like Michelangelo with art or Mozart with music. Gage Butler, for example, had been noted to have a "knack" for locating alien ruins in the most unlikely places, viz., Hyperion. One doctor had tested the theory on a couple of supposedly Empathy Rating 2 students who had a "knack" for certain medical procedures and both wild empaths were caught and bonded. The procedure was far from fool-proof as many "normal" people had equally strong talents, but it was a big hint.

One that Trey Logan's superiors had been blind to, Saran realised with each new snippet he read, such as exemplified by his personnel file. Logan's past was full of gaps and holes, which meant either he'd spent several years at a time sitting in a closet doing nothing or the "police check" on his background had consisted of some bureaucrat rubber-stamping everything that came across his desk without bothering to check a word of it.

The only child of now deceased parents, Trey "appeared" at Rainier University for two years – (_and I'll bet Simon Banks' Underground Railroad was involved in that up to their eyebrows_) - then vanished before "appearing" again on Halfway as a patrolman with the HSS PD, rising rapidly to detective when his affinity for solving always-unpleasant child-related crimes was noted, a big "wild empath" signal that would have been picked up on had anyone had their wits about them. Even children who had been severely abused by adult males approached Trey Logan as if he were as harmless as a teddy bear; the detective kept in touch with children whose abusers he had put away, and did a lot of voluntary work for counselling organisations.

One file was red-flagged by Logan, and Saran quickly pulled it up to discover a new, more dangerous fly in the ointment of his plan to simply get the PD to run Logan to ground. A vicious paedophile named Grokk had escaped custody en route to Styx and was believed to be either on his way back or already arrived on Halfway with the intent to kill the arresting officer – Logan. Worst-case scenario, Grokk was already here, in which case he probably had the PD under surveillance and the flat-footed Captain of Police's goons could blithely lead him right to Logan. Grokk was the most dangerous of all bad guys: one with nothing to lose. Sharply, Saran vetoed the order for teams of two to scour the station to flush Logan out and checked for other clues to find him.

Frowning, Saran pulled up Logan's financial records, finding yet more clues that didn't add up. What the PD thought he paid for his apartment was double the actual rent verified by the startled and too-scared-to-lie landlord when brought face to face with the LEO Commissioner twenty minutes ago. For someone who was single, childless, with no dependents, mortgage or expensive hobbies, thus having relatively low outgoings, Trey withdrew a considerable amount of his pay each month in _cash_, which "disappeared" into the ether. Some of it was spent on the expensive interactive counselling kits such as the one perched on the edge of his abandoned desk, but, and Saran ground his teeth, anyone with the _slightest_ common sense would have cottoned on to the possibility of a wild empath "flight fund", the secret store of ready cash that all wild empaths had to hand in case hasty departure from their vicinity was required.

Saran quickly recalculated based on the amounts Logan had been withdrawing, and, added to what he had withdrawn today when he maxed out his accounts, he had access to triple the galacs initially estimated. Saran clicked his tongue – not enough to buy a fake ID and more salubrious escape, but enough to bribe some freighter captain to hide him in the hold, engine room or waste section of the ship? Yes, definitely yes. Decisively, he replaced the flimsies on the desk. If he was going to catch Logan before the younger man was halfway across the galaxy, got himself killed in Down Below for the large amount of cash he must be carrying or was whacked by a vengeful Grokk, he had better take charge of the situation personally. Bribed freighter captain was the most likely bet, for they occupied the cheapest docking berths on the lowest outer rings, squeezed in amongst the cargo bays and engineering sections that were usually devoid of anything bar work robots. Now all he had to do was narrow it down to which one…

**Motel Halfway, Room 16, Outer Habitat Ring Seven, at about the same time…**

Room 16 was a glorified cupboard with the most cramped shower, washbasin and toilet Blair had ever seen. It cheapness came from several factors: it was on the lowest level _outer_ Habitat Ring, meaning that it was most vulnerable to unpleasant things like an outer hull puncture that would spill people into space and implode them like bursting tomatoes; each room was crammed together like sardines, with minimal to non-existent "facilities", maximising profit and minimising overheads; most "guests" just like Blair, did not want to be found and so could be safely dumped upon from a great height without fear of reprisals; the walls were tissue-paper thin sheets of metal that actually _amplified_ sound rather than muffling it.

Whoever was in the room to his right was either a prostitute or a couple with stupendous sexual stamina. The room to his left apparently contained a gentleman in debt to a short-tempered bookie or loan shark considering the amount of pleading com calls made with promises to get the cash "soon". In tandem, Left made another whining call pleading for more time, while Right started the sexual gymnastics again. Jury rigging the lock to ensure he'd have plenty of warning if anyone tried to come in, Blair popped two sleeping pills and lay down, clutching his backpack securely. By now the Dark Sentinel would probably have reached Luna City Seven and if only of basic intelligence would still have made the leap to "Halfway Station". He had tight-beamed Trey and Gage with warning of his escape, but had heard nothing from Trey. Tomorrow he would go to his friend's apartment and they could brainstorm an escape plan…

His eyes fluttered closed, only to jerk open as Alex Barnes' furious face flashed in front of them. Wincing, Blair realised that Right's carnal adventures were bringing unpleasant memories to the surface. He shook his head, still unable to believe how close he'd been to surrendering to the Dark Sentinel – another second and the pair of them would have been rolling around on the grimy blacktop in Bonding Heat. The Dark Guide was still sulking in his lair, protesting that this Dark Sentinel was nothing like Alex. Sandburg didn't care (_fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me_). Dark Sentinels were psychotically possessive, homicidally aggressive control-freaks completely unable to grasp the concepts of "mellow" and "chilling out". No, thank you.

Besides, Blair found himself surprised that the DS had so obviously _wanted_ him. Surely the guy must have made the connection between the "Dark Guide" and Alex Barnes' slave? Sure, the IFP bigwigs had "classified" the Barnes case, but anyone with reasonable hacking skills could access the unsavoury details. As far as the DS was concerned, surely Sandburg was at the very least "damaged goods", and could have all manner of hang-ups….Okay, so he did have all manner of hang-ups – (_but I survived mostly sane!_).

Pulling the pillow over his ears to shut out Left and Right, Blair glared at nothing. Oh yes, at first it had been hell. Going back to Rainier as if nothing were wrong. It had taken several days before his carefully hidden injuries had healed, before he could sit down comfortably after the last rape session, before he stopped waking up screaming and expecting to still see Alex's blood and brains all over his hands. The temptation of mind-numbing alcohol and the oblivion of drugs had called to him, but too many drinks just made him nauseous and drugs made him sleepy, and when he slept, nightmares came. He had eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner stoically every day until the morning came when he could finally keep food down without bringing it back.

Shutting down all feelings, he had concentrated on surviving each day one plodding step at a time. He had woken one morning to realise that it was the end of the semester and he wasn't a junkie or suicide statistic, moreover he had been able to act with such normalcy that no one had any idea anything untoward had occurred. Still, each day had been and sometimes still was a struggle. The first time he'd had PA – post Alex – sex, he'd almost blown it. The woman's enthusiastic groping at him made his flesh creep and he'd been soaked in the sweat of terror, not arousal. Realising he had to do something fast, he'd concentrated on pleasuring her in a variety of enterprising ways with hands and mouth so she didn't twig that he was as limp as last week's lettuce or realise till morning that they'd not actually copulated.

They'd actually had a fling for four months, she never realising that Blair often had to force himself to touch her and that most of the time he was terrified of her. Nor was his trauma confined to carnal contact. His Teaching Fellow friend Georgie had come up behind him one day and given him one of his trademark bear-hugs, which had frozen Blair in sheer, mind-numbing terror, though he'd been able to obfuscate his fugue state away. It had taken six months before he no longer had the urge to flinch when a friend slapped him on the back or put their arm around his shoulder, before he stopped wanting to cringe away when someone offered their hand to shake.

Nevertheless, the mirror each morning reflected a clear-eyed face unravaged by booze and drugs. Okay, he had problems – yes, he had panic attacks, but that was his normal state of existence since being in diapers, and Alex had only exacerbated the tendency not caused it, so that didn't really count. Yes, okay, he did have a minor drug problem, his dependency on sleeping medication for nightmares, but he wasn't in a gutter somewhere injecting trash into his veins and raving about purple people eaters or the verminous knids. Yes, _okay_, he did have a problem with the fact that sometimes he was driven to self-mutilate himself, as the thin white lines on his lower arms testified, but, but, _but_ – compared to what he could have ended up like had he let the horrors Alex perpetrated crush him, he was reasonably proud of himself.

And no Dark Sentinel, even one who qualified to be a living saint, was going to get anywhere near him, ever, ever again……

_**Approaching Halfway Station, B-class Transport Columbus…**_

Gage packed his holdall, making a mental note to buy some new clothes when they arrived on Halfway, his wardrobe having been routed in the Sentinel vs. Clothing battle. Not quite as opulently sybaritic as the _Byzantium_, _Columbus_ managed to be very luxurious anyway, certainly if his and Race' stateroom had been anything to go by. Not that Gage had managed to see much of the ship. Their hasty shuttle flight from Hyperion up to dock with the orbiting _Columbus_ had all gone very smoothly until the instant they stepped through the airlock and Race picked up a Bondless Sentinel aboard. A very weak Sentinel, barely more than a "Sentinel Sensitive" – someone with five enhanced senses but not the empathic ability of a Sentinel – but enough to trigger Keegan's territorial imperative. Gage had barely got inside the stateroom before he was pushed to the carpet, ruthlessly stripped and sucked into an emotional maelstrom of intense bonding by the roiling fury of his Sentinel's aggression. The bites and scratches as if he'd been mauled by a miffed kitten he could cope with, but the carpet burns on his ass had been hell and his favourite shirt had had to go into waste disposal.

Race had apologised sheepishly but hadn't changed his behaviour. Gage was not allowed anywhere without Race hovering behind him, even though the other Bondless Sentinel was utterly cowed by the ferocious glowers Race cast at him and wouldn't have dared approach Gage if his life had depended on it. Realising even his sweatpants would be a wasted effort, Gage had gone to bed commando as Race had jealously initiated Bonding nightly to emphasise his possession, wanting his Guide bathed in his own scent. The only privacy Gage had had was in the bathroom of the stateroom; using the toilet flush or shower to cover the noise, he had managed to check his mini comconsole.

Blair's grim message that he had been discovered by a Dark Sentinel and was fleeing to Halfway had been a hell of a bad shock, but Gage immediately tight-beamed back that he would be there and available to render any assistance. Then Gage tight-beamed Trey to warn him of his impending arrival and that under no circumstances must the young detective acknowledge him in any way, before erasing the messages as best he could, for knowing what Trey must be imagining worried the archaeologist the most.

Gage and Trey had forged a strong friendship. When Gage, Blair and Simon had discovered that "The Man" had arranged to sell some empathic sex slaves on to new buyers who could not afford "pure" merchandise, they had decided to raid the meeting. "The Man" had been and gone, but the buyers were there, with the slaves. They had expected no help from the drugged, broken slaves, but as Gage had been attacked by one thug, one of the slaves had suddenly come to life, killing three buyers and two gorilla bodyguards before anyone knew what was happening. With the other slaves also beginning to struggle, the Underground Railroad people had killed all present and rescued the slaves. Gage had taken the one who had saved his life. Trey rarely spoke about his experiences, except to explain his allergies to narcotics, and had been pathetically grateful when Simon spotted his deductive flair and wangled him a place at the Police Academy on Federation. Tight-beaming Trey when Race had Bonded Gage to him had been the hardest thing he'd ever done, and he'd sent reassurances that the Sentinel was a "good man", but knowing Trey he would be imagining the worst.

On top of that, a large part of him felt uncomfortable about deceiving Race. Keegan had never shown him anything but consideration as his Sentinel and Gage felt a lot better mentally and emotionally without having to remain doped up on suppressants all the time. More than that, Gage felt…_cherished_.

But it wasn't enough; Race the individual might be okay, but Race the Sentinel and Race the Dark Angel would only see the bigger picture, the advantages that could be gained if two very powerful wild empaths like Trey and Blair were bonded to appropriate Sentinels like Race's Dark Angel friend, Jim Ellison, the reason they were currently en route to Halfway. After what Blair had suffered with Alex Barnes and the hell Trey Logan had gone through courtesy of "The Man" simply because of genetic quirks over which they had no control, Gage would never willingly let Race know about them, much as he trusted Keegan on a personal level….

Luna City Seven, The Moon, Earth… 

Jim Ellison waited patiently in line for the next transport that would take him to Halfway Space Station, the cosmetic neck skin that had hidden his tattoo for James Ellis still in place, otherwise he would be surrounded by obsequiously fawning flunkies eager to help him queue jump. He remembered as a young child, before his parents' divorce, how his father used to disguise himself and go out like an ordinary person, around the hypermarkets and shops, waiting in queues, catching airbuses and the like. When Jim had asked his father why he did it, William Ellison had replied that it was because each time taught him something valuable.

"What dad?" Jim's five-year old face had screwed up in confusion.

"Humility, son."

He hadn't understood, and soon after his parents' fraught relationship had imploded, his father becoming the distant, disciplinarian martinet who had driven his sons away, but it was one of the few conversations he remembered he and his father having that wasn't tainted by anger, frustration or resentment. Now he smiled at William Ellison's wisdom. Vast wealth and power tended to insulate people from reality, surrounded by sycophants and hangers-on, they fell into the trap of believing in their own hype; Jim now understood what his father had realised: a sharp dose of reality helped re-focus the mind on what was really important in life.

Jim sighed regretfully; he had already decided to return to Cascade once he was Bonded with Blair – he liked being a Major Crime detective and it was almost a tailor made cover for a Dark Angel. Besides, Blair had remained a Teaching Fellow at Rainier, despite the obstructionism of the previous Dean, Marcia Edwards, for years longer than any place in his peripatetic life, so obviously had a strong attachment to it. The young Dark Guide had known only fear and pain from a Sentinel, as his instinctive Guide sense to help and care had been turned against him, and it was important to Jim that the youth learn that a true Sentinel cherished and guarded his Guide, letting him grow and progress as a person, not trying to hold him back or push him down. Unfortunately, Jim had known there was no time to explain to Major Crime or persuade them of his good intentions, and he winced now as he imagined what horrors Rafe was feeding them, recalling the events at the university.

He'd managed to be there at 8:00am, charming a caretaker into directing him to Sandburg's "office", a glorified storage room, the first thing that was going to change, Jim vowed. The place was crammed full of books and artefacts: African warrior shields, South American tribal masks, Aboriginal art, monkey skulls and other weird things that Jim didn't investigate too closely. Most of all, Blair's scent filled the place. Jim had dallied for an hour, running his fingers along books that Blair must have touched, imagining the young man working away at his desk, spectacles slipping down his nose. Blair had been a natural baby, like Hunter, not designed, so the defect of needing reading glasses had not been expunged from the chromosomes. Jim thought it made him look cute; as he'd breathed in the atmosphere of the small room, he didn't care about the goofy grin he knew had to be plastered all over his face. Once he'd shaken off the spell of Blair's enticing musk, it had taken him all of ten seconds to find a rent cheque made out for a warehouse. His photographic memory had supplied a map of the city and he'd realised with chagrin that Blair's "home" was only fifteen minutes walk – or five minutes panicked run – away from where Blair had been attacked by the four now dead muggers.

Leaving Sandburg's office, Jim had been walking back to his truck when he heard a familiar voice call his name. Bryn Rafe, here for a class, had spotted him. While trying to ease away from the young detective, the situation had gone pear-shaped. In the chill weather, Jim had been wearing a scarf that hid his neck, so when Dean Hammond approached the two of them, she could not see that his tattoo had "gone".

In her working life, the Dean had rapidly learned the importance of remembering the "right people", even after only one meeting. Thus, despite it being ten years in the past on another planet, she recalled James Joseph Ellison, the estranged – but still Body Heir – son of William. Before Jim could interject, she'd greeted him in surprise, by name.

Under any other circumstances, Rafe's gradually appearing expression of stunned shock would have been funny as he made the connection between "Jim Ellis" and the grim Dark Angel who'd scared him half to death on Search.

"Everything will be alright, Rafe." Jim had tried to reassure the young detective. "I'll be back, and everything will be okay, I promise."

Turning on his heel, he had walked away from the stunned pair, getting in the truck and driving towards the spaceport. He disregarded any ideas of going to the warehouse, as Blair would have been long gone. Besides, time was now of the essence and not just if he wanted to catch his Dark Guide. Rafe was probably already frantically contacting Major Crime to inform them of the "disaster". Jim had no doubt that Blair was a co-conspirator with Banks and Major Crime personnel in the Underground Railroad, and he needed to get off world before Simon thought up some delaying tactic, or worse, panicked and tried something stupid, like permanently "getting rid" of the threat.

Luna City 1, 2 and so forth, had changed their names to things like _Copernicus _and _Hawking_, but Luna City 7 had kept it's name after the famous song about it topped the intergalactic charts, even though there were now no Luna Cities 1-6. Upon arrival, Jim hadn't bothered to disembark the shuttle. The song had made LC7 a popular tourist spot, and at first glance Jim knew he could have wasted several days trying to track Blair amongst the ever-changing crowds, but sometimes you just had to go with your gut, and his gut was firmly saying: _Halfway_. It made sense, since Halfway wasn't called the Gateway to the Universe for nothing. From Halfway you could literally make it anywhere. So he'd remained on the shuttle transport, feeling the anticipation build now as he stared through one of the shuttle's windows and watched Halfway grow from a speck of light to a mass of contoured metal. _Soon…._

**_Back on Halfway Space Station_…**

Saran spread out the blueprints of the appropriate docking berths on the outer rings, pleased that everyone seemed to be paying attention and able to grasp the fundamentals. The Captain of Police had surveillance at Logan's apartment, but Saran knew the youth would not return, however it kept a few of the Keystone Cops out of his way. He had dismissed all those pilots or ships that were due to leave within the next 12 to 24 hours, as Logan would know these would all be searched. After the third or fourth day however, assuming Logan could stay lost until then, the ship operators would get restive, the police officers more slack in their searching, and he would have greater opportunities to slip through. There were fifteen ships scheduled to leave in the next 3 or 4 days, so Saran had decided to monitor them all. It was inefficient but the only way. It was now "mid-afternoon" and Saran wanted Logan in custody by "nightfall" -

Irritably he came back to the present as the "officers" were none-too-quietly arguing over how to cover the areas. Now his problem was that the arriviste Captain of Police's equally self-serving, ineffectual "political" cops were all he had to depend on. The previously friendly "real" officers had subtly withdrawn from him when it became known what he was doing. Trey wasn't "popular", but he was widely respected for his extreme dedication to a terribly traumatic job and his record in convicting several dozen abhorred child abusers, such as the now escaped Grokk, endeared him to the "proper" police officers if not the political timeservers. Saran felt a pang of regret, but he was a man who made his decisions with eyes wide open and fully accepting the consequences. Trey Logan would be his Bonded Guide, willingly or not. As LEO Commissioner he had to operate at peak efficiency at all times, and he had no time or intention of pandering to wild empath histrionics. Logan would submit to the bond or he would take him.

About to call the bickerers to order, a patch of aquamarine caught his eye. He glanced closer; it was a damn silly colour to stick on any map, especially ones as packed with detail as these flimsies, because the pale bluish-green colour faded into the background compared to the garish reds and oranges. The large oblong patch seemed to cover part of the cargo bays and service bays in the lowest outer Docking Ring, used by only the cheapest skinflint ship captains who would not pay any higher charges, or those who wished to remain anonymous. In short, it was ideally placed for Logan to lurk.

"What's this?" He tapped the map peremptorily.

"Sir?" Madeley looked him.

"This, here." Saran indicated the area.

"Oh, those are the Condemned Bays." Madeley identified disinterestedly, turning back to the heated "discussion".

Saran took a controlling breath. "_Madeley_."

"Sir?"

"The batteries in my crystal ball have gone flat, Madeley. What, _precisely, _if you please, are the Condemned Bays?"

"Ummm…."

The Station Manger hitched forward like an eager rabbit, fawning with servile eagerness to please. "There was a major leakage of improperly stored toxic chemicals in two Cargo Bays and an Engineering Sub-Service Bay, Sir. They had to be sealed off completely due to the contamination."

Saran rubbed his fingers across his chin as he pondered the situation. "Contaminated" did not necessarily equal "lethal". If Logan had taken or managed to obtain some sort of protective suit or perhaps only needed a breathing mask, the area might be safe to occupy for a few days. It was a distinct possibility, and a far better bet than spreading his teams, such as they were, over a dozen different Docking Berths in the hope that the team in question would be alert enough to apprehend Logan if he tried to sneak through. "What's the Risk Level?"

Blank expressions.

How did these people ever manage to catch any crooks? It was like watching circus clowns! "What grade of protective suit will we need to go into the Condemned Bays. Grade 5? Grade 1?" He tried again, 5 being the lowest for weak contamination and 1 for the sort of major bio-hazard that had sensible people cowering under their beds.

"Umm, I'm not sure." The Station Manager confessed, exchanging a helpless look with the others.

(_Do I have to lead them by the hand? Apparently I do._) Saran, in what he considered a remarkably tranquil tone, asked, "Well, when did the spill happen? How long ago the chemicals were spilled will tell us how dangerous the area still is." (_There, is that simple enough for you?_)

"Oh, yes!" Face clearing magically, the CoP waved a flunkie/aide/secretary/hanger-on to the nearest computer, where the skinny blond geek, who didn't look old enough to shave, imperiously demanded the date of the spillage, the effect ruined by his squeaky voice.

The computer promptly answered: 5th July 2534.

Saran went very, very still, not sure if he'd heard right. "Excuse me?"

The computer, misunderstanding, promptly repeated the date.

Saran put his head in his hands. "Oh. My. _God!_"

"Sir!" The baffled and alarmed chorus was grating cacophony to his ears.

Saran raised his head and glared at them all with such ferocity that the entire room took an involuntarily step back. Coldly, precisely, spacing out the words, Saran unleashed. "You. Idiots. Are. Unbelievable. Ladies and gentlemen, NO CHEMICAL agent that has been produced legally, illegally or accidentally whipped up by the local mad chemist, in the last THREE HUNDRED YEARS, will contaminate a site of spillage for longer than TWENTY YEARS."

Terrified silence, until Madeley let out a tiny, whimpering, interrogative squeak.

Saran took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he resisted the urge to start throwing things. "The 5th of July 2534 was FIFTY YEARS and two months ago today! What I am _trying to convey to your TINY LITTLE MINDS_ is the fact that the "Condemned Bays" have been _perfectly safe to enter for the past three decades!" _He threw his arms out wide in an extravagant gesture of frustration. "This space station has had a security blind spot the size of a small moon, for the past thirty years, which _nobody_ has ever noticed, for the _simple reason _that some desk-warming, bootlicking, pen-pushing Jobsworth designated the area as contaminated way back when and NOBODY REMEMBERED TO REMOVE IT from the maps!"

Aware that if started to rant he probably wouldn't stop, Saran gave snarled orders for all teams to simply follow him, and marched down to the parking garage vibrating with anger. Who knew what contraband came through the "Contaminated Bays" daily? Drugs, illegal immigrants, slaves – _escaping wild empaths_! For the sake of a little blue-green patch on a map, Trey Logan would have waltzed off the station as free as bird while Saran and Co., kicked their heels futilely at the Docking Rings!

Trey hunched deeper in his coat, his chill partly psychosomatic as well as literal. There was a coldness in his bones that had nothing to do with low temperatures and everything to do with a bleeding soul. Occasional shadowy shapes drifted past and he tensed, but his on-the-edge aura must have warned them away.

At least Old Dimitri was here, the grizzled deep space trader who claimed to be from Russia and looked like every stereotypical "old sea dog" ever invented in literature. Whatever Dimitri was, he honoured a deal, not selling you out for a higher price. Dimitri would shove him in the garbage recycling section of his battered old space scow and a few days into space, the old ship would shudder to a halt with engine trouble just in time for the _USS Nimitz_ to come by and offer assistance. Once "repaired" Dimitri would carry on, and Trey would be a scullion aboard the _Nimitz_. The Navy would be astounded at the way Daric Slater's crew expanded by a few people here and there after leaving space dock, only to contract again to the officially designated number upon return. Trey intended to work his way to some far flung frontier world and spent the rest of his life being very, very invisible – what was that?

His eyes darted about nervously, these places were infested with vermin, but the soft scraping seemed a little too regular. Quickly darting behind some large plastic drums, Trey crouched low, hidden in the semi gloom. His mouth went bone dry as he saw looming figures and saw the flash of police shields. His disruptor was in his hand but he was shaking from head to foot, terror clawing at him, urging him to run, run now, but his legs seemed to be paralysed –

Saran winced as he heard Logan's heartbeat skyrocket to jackhammer frantically against the youth's ribs. Damn, the CoP and his team must have shown themselves too soon. Saran had had his "team" spread out in a rough semi circle that gradually "tightened" in, his whispered order not to allow Logan to slip through given in a tone that promised instant and painful death should that happen. Consequently everyone was very, very alert and very, very scared.

"Detective!" The CoP's voice cracked in the middle of the word, sweat trickling down his back. He was a Captain of Police, he should be meeting the mayor in his office over brandy and cigars, discussing policy, not stood in the middle of some dank, gloomy bay that was far too resembling of a giant metal coffin, trying to entice out a mind-freak with a gun!

The CoP bit his lip hard to muffle a scream as a small, dark lump against the greater gloom seemed to move. He tried to make his voice soothing, but it was nigh on impossible as all he wanted to do was scream an order to shoot and hit the deck. Van den Mikhail had warned that Logan must be unharmed in a voice that had made the CoP nearly urinate in his pants from fear, which was why _they_ were armed with stun guns while _Logan_ had a fully charged disruptor and an antique but fully functional Beretta that fired just as lethal lead bullets!

Saran hugged the deeply shadowed wall of the bay, grateful for the sneak 'n' peek lessons he'd taken from his Dark Angel friends Ellison and Keegan. He had pinpointed his Guide's position, and now manoeuvred so he could signal one of the snipers, but the younger man was currently still hidden behind shipping crates and drums.

Trey tried not to hyperventilate. If he could work his way to one of the air ducts, he could crawl through the vent system and be free and clear. Carefully he edged forward, but there were more shapes. Lips drawn back in a rictus of terror-induced rage, he pointed his disruptor straight at the CoP. "GET BACK!"

With a whimper of terror, the CoP jumped out of his skin, and everyone instinctively froze, giving Trey the opportunity to edge closer to escape.

Saran swore under his breath. The CoP was supposed to keep Trey talking and distracted enough for the young detective's disruptor to waver out of alignment, but the dummy had failed. There was no way he was losing Logan in the vent system now! He would have to risk it. Unseen in the shadows bar for the snipers whose attention was focussed on him, Saran made the hand signal. High on the catwalk above, one with a clear line-of-sight touched his finger lightly on the trigger of his rifle.

The tranquilliser hit Trey's jugular vein dead on and pumped powerful sedative into him before the sharp prick of the needle entering his flesh allowed Logan to register that he'd been hit. Lunging forward, Saran closed the distance between them, catching Logan as he began to topple. To the Sentinel's amazement, he watched as the rapidly fading young man, using all his strength, reactivated the safety on the disruptor and lowered it to his side, instead of dropping it where it might discharge wildly. Before the detective's eyes fluttered closed, they locked with Saran's own, and for a sober instant, utter despair flared before he slumped unconscious in Saran's grip.

Trey licked his lips distastefully as he tried to moisturize his dry mouth. He groaned as he read the time on wall screen of his home computer – 10:00am! The Captain of Juvie would throw a thousand fits when he walked in three hours late for his shift. Sitting up, he looked down in puzzlement at his fully dressed state, then felt something snag round his right ankle. What…?

The events of the previous night came crashing down on him with full force as he saw the feather-light but unbreakable Black Widow Spider Silk binding secured around his ankle like a cuff and the long, coiled "rope" of the same material that led to a tiny, brand-new-not-there-the-day-before bracket on the wall. His mind automatically calculated that he had enough rope to reach his bedroom's en suite bathroom, and that was it. Before he had more than a second to assimilate this, his bedroom door opened and he jerked around, fearfully edging back till his back touched his bedroom wall.

Saran felt a surge of exasperation as the young detective looked at him like a terrified doe – his face nothing but a huge pair of panicked eyes – and flinched away from him. He didn't have time for any nonsense. "Drink this, it'll take away the dryness."

Responding to the sharp command, Trey obediently took the restorative and downed it with a gulp. "Let me go." He appealed.

"Don't be ridiculous -" Saran began, intending to squash what he thought would be an outburst of hysterics, blubbering and general dramatics.

"Commissioner, it's public knowledge that you've never wanted a Guide!" Trey interrupted nervously but calmly, at least as calmly as he could when he was shaking with fear. "And I don't want to be a Guide! So why not give us what be both want?"

"Because I don't have a choice!" Saran snapped. "For whatever reason, I began, albeit only partially, to empathically bond with _you_. That means, unless we complete the Bonding, I will spend the rest of my life in the early stages of Bonding Heat, and will have to permanently remain on suppressants, because the instant I no longer take them, for whatever reason, instinct will force me to find you and claim you."

Trey opened his mouth, obviously intending to make some protestation, but Saran silenced him with a sharp slicing hand movement. "I have no intention of spending the rest of my life ingesting narcotics, however legal and "non side-effect causing" they may be. Being LEO Commissioner and Viceroy of Alban are only two of my many responsibilities and I don't have time to be messing about with any protracted Sentinel and Guide rubbish. In five days I am leaving Halfway for the LEO Commission Palace on Federation, at which time you will be my Bonded Guide. I'll give you two days to get over your snit and soothe your inner moppet, then Detective Logan we'll get this Bonding out of the way so maybe I'll be able to get some work done again! Your lunch will be served at noon," Saran allowed his tone to become icier, "and you will eat it."

Removing the cup from Trey's hand, he turned and left, closing the door behind him and nodding to the officer stationed on duty in the kitchen, at the end of the hallway, not that Logan would wiggle out of or cut through Black Widow Spider Silk. Logan's apartment was the most secure place to keep the empath without making both he and Saran a spectacle for prurient voyeurs, so Saran had decided to commute to and from his temporary base at the precinct daily.

Saran was completely unaware that his brisk, bracing attitude, designed to be sensibly practical about the whole situation, had come over as mercilessly harsh and icily ruthless. He would have been genuinely confused had he been able to see the young detective curl up in foetal ball, quiet tears of fear and total despair running down his face as he used his own pillow to muffle hopeless sobs.

Chapter VI – Guides Found 

_**Two days later, across from Trey's apartment…**_

Blair frowned anxiously, his inner alarm klaxon going _oougah-oougah!_

His intent to come straight to Trey's had been foiled by Right, who did indeed turn out to be a lady of the night. "Dawn's early light" had been shattered by outraged shrieks and yells that brought motel security – big muscles, small brains – hotfoot to the room, where it transpired that the latest customer had decided not to pay and had got "physical" when the lady was having none of it.

The situation had gotten ugly and loud just in time to attract the attention of passing Station Security Officers from the nearest police precinct, and the boys in blue had arrived to make enquiries and admire the _déshabillé _of the lady in question. Blair had gone from fuzzy somnolence to wide-awake terror in seconds. Within two minutes he was scrambling into and crawling through the ventilation shaft from his room as fast as he could in any direction that seemed _away_, and as a result found himself to be hopelessly lost. By the time he'd got back to the Promenade it was the middle of the night, so he managed to squeeze into another vent to spend the night. It was now mid-morning and he was sat, ostensibly drinking coffee, surreptitiously watching Trey's apartment block that was situated on the next level "down" from his position and directly opposite him.

Unfortunately so were several other people.

A self-consciously inconspicuous middle-aged man in a suit was seated on a sidewalk bench reading a paper, the page of which he hadn't turned in over twenty minutes. Down the cutting between Trey's building and the next another two were ostensibly repairing a drainpipe, except that they had done nothing but pick up different tools from their workbag, none of which they'd used. There were others, all putting Blair's danger radar on red alert. Yet, he recognised at least one as a cop he'd met briefly during a previous vacation to see Trey. But Trey was a cop, so why did his colleagues have his place under surveillance?

He watched a bit longer, it slowly beginning to dawn on him that the cops (?) were not ideally placed for _surveillance_ – they seemed to have no one monitoring Trey's apartment to see if he came home for example, nor anyone placed at much more discreet surveillance positions, such as a table outside the café where Blair himself was sat, which gave a panoramic view over the "sidewalk" safety rail of the whole area. They were, however, in close proximity to all the building's exits, as if watching to make sure that someone in the building did not leave.

Or escape? 

Ancient instincts that had once warned about hungry sabre-toothed tigers and perilously close woolly rhinos were now giving urgent warning that something was very, very wrong. Casually finishing his coffee, Blair left the café, walked to the nearest library, on a block away, randomly pulled a book of the shelf and sat down, staring blindly at it while doing some frantic cogitation.

Trey, or another resident, was obviously in the building and presumably desirous of escape. Blair's gut and extremely healthy sense of paranoia were insisting that person was Trey himself, presumably confined to his apartment? If so, why? If Trey had committed some sort of crime, his fellow officers would have been legally obligated to incarcerate him in the holding cells they already had available at the precinct, never mind how much more difficult it was trying to ensure he didn't escape from his apartment – yet they had gone to just that trouble. If Trey hadn't committed a felony, why were his fellow police officers guarding the place to ensure he couldn't escape?

Replacing the book and leaving the library, Blair returned to the thoroughfare where the café was, meandering along and looking in shop windows. Carefully, he removed the miniature magnifier he usually used to enlarge crabbed handwriting on old manuscripts, and held it in front of his spectacles, looking at the apartment's blocks enhanced reflection in the shop windows – specifically the roof. He held his breath, hoping against hope that they'd missed it –

Yes! 

Softly whistling the tune from the classic move, _The Great Escape,_ Blair turned and melted into the crowds of shoppers, away from the apartment.

_**Meanwhile…**_

Jim winced and dialled down the noise. Halfway always made him feel as if someone had placed a gigantic metal bucket over his body and was banging the outside of it with a spoon. He'd guessed that the place to start would be the sleaziest motels and after greasing several already grimy palms with galacs he'd found what he was looking for on the lowest Outer Habitat Ring. Two patrolmen had been called to a disturbance involving a hooker and non-paying client. Deciding to check with the occupants either side, they found that the room to the lady prostitute's left was occupied by a "gentleman of the night" who was entertaining two male and one female Mandarins Junior Grade and was therefore a bit too busy to take note of what was going on outside his room. Hastily deciding on discretion over valour, they left the quartet to their sexual Olympiad, only to find that the room to her right was mysteriously unoccupied, though the motel manager swore no one could leave without him seeing them, a deliberate design to the motel layout for those who "forgot" to pay for any extras they'd had while occupying the rooms. Promotion opportunities suggested that discretion would be wise, so the two officers had ensured the client paid for service rendered and escorted him off the premises. When Jim arrived and made enquiries, the motel manager's memory was suddenly restored with a 100 galacs, and he promptly identified the vanished occupant of Room 35 as the curly haired young man "floating" just above the miniature holograph generator that Jim had set up from Sandburg's personnel file.

Now all he had to do was find him before he managed to get away from Halfway. Which was why he stood discreetly in a little alcove off the main shopping promenade as he gave Race Keegan a scarf he'd found in Sandburg's office that still smelled strongly of him. Race was the closest Bonded Sentinel Dark Angel not currently on a mission; together they could search the station in double the time with more accuracy than most search robots, and Jim didn't have to worry about Race trying to claim Blair as his own. "Where's your Guide?" Jim asked after they divided up their search areas, surprised that the archaeologist wasn't with his Sentinel.

"Shopping." Keegan grinned sheepishly. "There was a Bondless Sentinel – empathically as weak as old lettuce, to be honest – on the _Columbus_ as we came here, but bondless is bondless and the ol' territorial imperative kicked in. Gage's wardrobe took a bit of a battering."

Wisely making no facetious comments, since he intended to spend the rest of his life inflicting similar damage to Blair Sandburg's clothing, Jim simply nodded and they split up, moving carefully but speedily through the crowds. Without Guides, there was always a danger of zone out, but the only up side of Halfway Station was there was always too much distraction and sheer racket for a Sentinel to slip into any void.

Blair moved with exquisite care as he climbed down the very old, rusting metal wall-ladder, ruefully realising that the always cheapskate administration of Halfway would use cheap metal instead of the more expensive but durable plastic or polymer materials, thankful that Trey, taking to heart the "always have multiple escape routes" credo Gage, Blair and Simon instilled him, had shown him this secret shaft when he'd come before.

Like so much of Halfway, Apartment Block Gemini C was far different from its original, much smaller construction. Back then a single elevator had trundled up and down through the centre of the building, but when they'd expanded the block two hundred and twenty years ago, they'd taken out the old elevator and moved the position, putting more in for the new construction. Again to save money, instead of filling in the old shaft, they'd simply bricked up the doorways on each floor, leaving the shaft and the metal ladder for servicing and repairs to rot. Trey, carefully checking all the blueprints as far back as they still existed, promptly found the central shaft that had been missed off every architectural plan for the last two centuries. Of most use, however, was the fact that the shaft started in the basement and came out on the roof, though it had all been bricked up and plastered over. Crawling into the shaft from the basement and making his way up to his floor, Trey had shown Blair how he'd cut a large square section of brick and plaster through to his own floor. The shaft side had two metal handles on it so someone on the ladder could simply pull it out, plus a sturdy chain at the bottom, deeply embedded in the shaft wall.

On the corridor side, the wall was disguised by being at the end of a side corridor with large, artificial shrubs in front of it. If he needed to, Trey could in theory step behind the shielding shrubs, push the section out, climb onto the ladder, retrieve the section as it dangled on the length of chain, and re-insert it into the wall, making good his getaway while everyone tried to figure out how he'd done it.

Taking a deep breath, Blair sent a silent prayer that the corridor was still deserted, then reached and gripped the handles firmly, pulling sharply back. The section slid smoothly and he teetered on the ladder, frantically peering through to ensure nobody was standing the other side watching him. The much more brightly lit main hallway was a good fifteen yards away. Carefully lowering the section so it didn't bang against the brick, Blair wriggled into the small space behind the potted shrubs with their shielding plastic foliage. Pulling a pressurised, three-pronged hook out of his pocket, he pulled the section of wall up by the chain and inserted the hook into the painted plasterwork. Holding the handle with both hands he eased the section back into place, carefully brushing the edges after he'd done so to ensure that the joins were not too visible. Withdrawing the hook, he winced as he saw the deep holes in the plaster, but he could only hope nobody noticed them and became curious. Now, to find Trey. He had to assume that the Dark Sentinel might have been able to put out some sort of APB on him, so he scooped up his hair under a cap, pulling it down over his eyes so there was less chance of someone recognised his long brown curls.

Fortunately, there were no apartments in the side corridor, which had originally been designed only to let people access the now the gone elevator, so Blair had no fear of anyone coming up behind him unless they "beamed down" – something that, to the chagrin of scientists, remained very much in the sci-fi fantasy realm of _Star Trek_. Creeping to the end of the side corridor, he took out a mirror out of his backpack and, leaning against the wall, carefully slid it out into the main hallway, so he could see in it's reflection what was in that end of the corridor. Trey's apartment was the same side of the building as the side corridor, number 207. The hallway was entirely deserted, except for, just outside Trey's apartment, a man in a chain-store suit sat on a chair.

His arms were folded, his head was down, and the rise and fall of his chest was deep and regular. Blair checked his watch – it was early afternoon, when 99 of the building's residents would be at work, and when a man guarding something would find it hard to stay awake in a very quiet place after a hearty lunch. Blair grinned – modern day scanners could detect even a dissembled disruptor buried in several inches of lead, but they'd passed over completely a long, thin section of wood that he now removed from his backpack after replacing the mirror. The South American blowpipe was over 1,000 years old, but the dart in it carried a pressurised capsule of _very_ modern sedative. With a last sneak either way to make sure the hallway was otherwise deserted, Blair began to walk casually down the corridor, holding one hand with the "back" of it facing the sleeping guard, so that the end of the blowpipe resting on his palm and the remainder of it up his sleeve were hidden from view. He deliberately did not look at the man as he approached at a normal walking pace, since many people had a "sixth sense" if they were stared at or the focus of too close attention.

The guard slumped from sleep into unconsciousness without a sound as Blair casually blew the dart into him from ten feet away, not even feeling the slight sting. Removing the spent dart from the guard's neck and placing it in the man's pocket so any medic knew what it was, Blair took the next one out and slid it into the pipe as he carefully lowered the unconscious man to the floor and placed him in the standard First Aid Recovery Position. During his flight from Cascade he had dared not risk taking any weapons that might be detected and cause him to be detained long enough for the Dark Sentinel to catch up, and all that his warehouse had had that would get through the scanners were his vibra knife and the ancient blowpipe. Once on Halfway, he'd only been able to afford two extortionately expensive mini darts and capsules of sedative from the trader in Down Below, (_So I really, really hope that there is preferably none or only one more guard inside_). Taking a deep breath, Blair glanced around and moved to kneel beside the unconscious man in the manner of someone administering first aid, directly in front of the apartment door, blowpipe at the ready. He needed to be loud enough for any guard inside to hear, but not so loud as to attract the attention of anyone else. Carefully pitching his voice, he exclaimed loudly, "HEY, _are you alright? Sir? Mister, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"_

Instantly there were approaching footsteps and 207's door opened sharply. The interior guard didn't even register the faint sting in his neck as his gaze took in his fallen colleague apparently unconscious with a young man kneeling next to him. In the few seconds it took his brain to assimilate the fact that the youth had a long piece of wood pressed to his lips that was aimed at him, he was crumpling unconscious to the floor.

Leaping to his feet, Blair heaved the considerable dead weight of the cop back onto the chair, positioning him so he appeared to be asleep, something which might provide a few valuable minutes of getaway time. Panting heavily, he entered Trey's apartment and shut the door after heaving the second guard into the lounge, before sagging for a moment to get his breath. In the movies, the hero tossed unconscious baddies, injured buddies and swooned maidens around like feathers, but in real life an unconscious person was virtually unmanageable dead weight that just flopped around and slipped through the fingers like Jell-O. The kitchen, lounge and, through the open door he could see, the second bedroom were empty. The master bedroom had an en suite, ideal for giving a prisoner access to "facilities" without having to risk escorting him to the bathroom and having him trying to scramble out the window. Abandoning stealth, he hurried to that room, throwing open the door and going in, his breathing catching as he saw a familiar figure laying on the bed with his back to him. "What say we blow this pop stand?"

Trey Logan's head flashed around so fast he nearly got whiplash, his jaw dropping in the manner of cartoon animals as he took in Blair Sandburg.

"Ta-da!" Blair did a fancy little jig and bowed extravagantly.

Sheer, unadulterated joy suffused Trey's face, tears springing to his eyes as his friend came close enough to be fiercely hugged and pounded on the back.

"The ribs, man, the ribs!" Blair managed to gasp out, half laughing, half crying. "I love you too. Now, does the king want to leave the building?"

Trey leaned back, "Blair, you've got to get out of here!" He jerked his leg helplessly. "This stuff is Black Widow Spider Silk – we can't burn it, cut it or manipulate my foot out of it!"

"I know." Blair paused just for a microsecond to savour smugness, then took his vibra knife and neatly cut through the plaster surrounding the bracket on the wall above Trey's bed. "I always said shoving your bed into a corner was bad for the _chi_, man," he commented as he gouged out the lump of wall with the bracket embedded in it. "You want to take care of this?"

Cackling, Trey jumped off the bed. Taking the coiled rope of BWSS, he pulled it up so it rested against the lighter blackness of his jeans then wound it around his waist repeatedly until he got the last bit, shoving it and the attached bracket into his pocket, before pulling his shirt over it. "Elevator shaft?"

"Got it in one. Now let us away!"

"Lead on, MacDuff."

The money Trey had withdrawn was still on his kitchen counter top, but his police sidearm, disruptor and antique Beretta were all missing. However, since their only desire was to put maximum distance between themselves and Halfway in minimum time, Trey just crushed the money into his jacket pocket and sealed it. Together, they sneaked out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. Twenty hair-raising minutes later – the rusting ladder did not like the weight of two full grown men on it and several rungs and side bits had snapped off – they were crawling out of the basement access hole that Sandburg had punched through the crumbling bricks. Dusting themselves off, they sneaked the end of the alleyway that separated their block from the next one and peeked cautiously into the main boulevard. Spotting the external guards was easy, but after nearly two days of nil resistance from their former "brother in blue", most of the guards were doing something more interesting, like window shop or eye up passing possible romantic talent. A gaggle of twenty-something youths came strolling along, laughing. With grins, Blair and Trey discreetly attached themselves to the rear end of the group, walking along until they reached the intersection where they quietly cleaved off in another direction. Intent on being as inconspicuous as possible, neither noticed the crazed, hate filled eyes from the apartment building's _new_ watcher, that latched onto Trey with venom as their owner began to follow the escapees.

_**HSS Central Precinct…**_

His Sentinel radar suddenly pinging, Saran turned sharply. For an instant the two Sentinels faced each other, each recognising in the other a Sentinel tracking a Guide, therefore a possible rival to his own claim.

"Blair Sandburg." Jim Ellison finally said.

"Trey Logan." Saran returned.

Hostility dissipated at the reassurances that while each was tracking a Guide, neither was tracking the _same_ Guide. A dint appeared between Saran's eyes as memory tugged. "Sandburg, why is that familiar?"

"He's a Teaching Fellow of Anthropology & Earth History at Rainier University in Cascade." Jim supplied.

"Really? Now isn't that a surprise," Saran murmured dryly, "Detective Trey Logan studied Earth History at Rainier." He scowled. "I think I can safely say that the LEO Commissioner is going to take a great deal more interest in Captain Simon Banks and his Cascade PD."

Jim made a snap decision. "Sandburg skipped – headed here like a guided – no pun intended – missile. Your Guide is wild empath working incognito on Halfway, a place my Guide makes a beeline for. Would you allow me to ask him if he knows anything?"

"Logan tried to scarper too." Saran plucked his jacket from the back of his chair. "Let's go now - I've got him under confinement at his apartment. If he knows anything, he'll tell you." Saran promised grimly.

Hearing a sudden commotion outside, Saran turned toward it, missing the startled expression on Ellison's face. Jim risked a quick sensory scan of the LEO Commissioner. Saran was only just in the very early stages of Bonding Heat, he wouldn't be in full heat for several more days, which was probably why he could still speak with such emotional detachment about Detective Logan and so casually agree to force his Guide to co-operate with another Sentinel.

"_SIR!I"_ Looking very much like the mouse chosen to bell the cat, one of the Police Commissioner's flunkies stumbled into the room.

"What is it?" Rapped out Saran impatiently.

"H-h-he's g-g-gone!"

Jim and Saran exchanged baffled glances. "Who?" Saran asked.

"Logan." The flunkie whispered, wide-eyed.

"_What!"_

Saran led Jim on the way to the parking garage, his thunderous expression scattering everybody in his wake, the accompanying officers, hurrying to keep up, providing a situation report. Both guard police officers had been discovered unconscious by their relief, the paramedics had identified the agent as an illegal, powerful but basically harmless sedative. Unable to break BWSS, Logan had apparently simply dug a hole in the plasterwork around the securing bracket and taken the whole ensemble with him.

As they got into the waiting air skiff, Jim activated his wristcom. "Race Keegan is here – I'll give him a sit-rep."

Contacting the Dark Angel Sentinel, Jim filled him in on events, but Keegan elected to remain searching in the hope of striking lucky, there being no point in his coming all the way to Logan's apartment block with two fully functional Sentinels already _in situ_. Deactivating the link, Jim braced one arm against the skiff door as their police escort tried to get them there in minimum time.

_**Promenade Shopping Malls, Halfway Space Station…**_

Pulling his shirt sleeve over his wristcom, Race began to move deeper into the central shopping area, casting out a mental "sensory net" again, but this time for his oblivious Guide. Two Sentinels searching for one runaway wild empath, even a potential Dark Guide was one thing, but now that there were two desperate, probably armed wild empaths trying to get out of the way of a large number of undoubtedly nervous police officers, Race wanted Gage safely with him. The rotunda soared upwards, each level of shops and eateries overlooking the central area at the bottom with it's fountain and potted plants, giving it an irritating echo effect when he tried to use his enhanced senses, but the problem wasn't enough to hurt or seriously interfere with his Sentinel abilities, so Race ignored it, empathically seeking out that familiar heartbeat and thought patterns.

_**Apartment Block Gemini C, Apartment 207, Halfway Space Station…**_

"It's Sandburg!"

Saran paused at Jim's exclamation as they stood in the apartment's central hallway. "Sandburg?"

Ellison nodded. "He was here, within the last few hours, I can smell him. Focus your smell… see?"

Carefully, Saran drew in air through his nostrils and parted his lips slightly so his taste buds could also come into play. Undetectable to anyone bar a Sentinel, the scent was clearly there. A totally unfamiliar individual's body scent, carrying the "musk" of an empath; Saran tasted something else, interwoven irrevocably with the musk – the molasses-thick sweetness of an empath in full-blown bonding heat. Intensely aware of James Ellison's acute attention, Saran met the other man's eyes squarely. Upon scenting that, any Bondless Sentinel genetically compatible with Sandburg would have begun to experience the same hunger, becoming a rival to Ellison. The fact that Saran could taste _that_ essence and display nothing more than intellectual interest meant that he had already started to bond with Trey Logan. If that scent had belonged to Logan…Saran felt his pulse quicken with atavistic thrill, but quashed it. He was far too busy to have to spend his time running around after errant Guides, a fact he intended to impress firmly upon Logan once the youth was back where he belonged.

Now, however, Jim was scowling. Walking out of the apartment back the way they'd come up the main hallway, he glared about him. "It's not here."

"Sandburg's scent?" Saran guessed.

"Yeah." Coming back, Jim frowned. "It is directly outside the apartment, and it's inside, but there's not a trace of it in the main foyer, the elevator, or the corridor up to this point."

"So he didn't simply walk through the main entrance." Saran deduced, with a sharp look at the surrounding officers, who shuffled their feet sheepishly.

Careful not to extend his enhanced smell too much for fear of zone out – this would be a hundred times easier with a Guide – Jim followed Sandburg's rich aroma along the hallway and round a corner to a side corridor. He and Saran exchanged glances. There were no apartment doors or other exits here, only a few dusty plastic potted plants at the far end in front of a blank wall. Jim folded his arms and glared at the offending few metres of carpeted corridor. "Why is this here?"

The officer nearest jumped at the demand. "S-S-Sentinel?"

Jim waved a hand disdainfully up and down. "What is the point of this corridor? It goes nowhere and leads to nothing, so what was the point of putting it here?" Not waiting for a reply, Jim and Saran followed Blair's musk, pulling aside the potted plants. "_Heeelloooo_, and what do we have here?" Jim reached out and ran his fingers over the three large holes in the plasterwork where something had been inserted then removed. "Fresh, in the last few hours," he told Saran.

The LEO Commissioner meanwhile ran his fingers around grooved edges in the plasterwork, finding a square. "Shall we?"

Placing both their hands on the square of wall, Saran and Jim pushed firmly, and with a slight pop of displaced air, the section fell in, falling to bang against the brick wall of the shaft as it's chain held it. Sticking his head through the hole, Jim turned his face upwards and sniffed, then repeated the action while facing downwards. The sweet, delicious trail was as clear to his nose as if a visible scarlet thread. "Basement."

The small hole at the base of the service shaft was hidden behind a pile of old boxes, and they tracked it to the alleyway, where it became clear that Sandburg and Logan had simply walked away…

_**Abandoned Outer Habitat Ring 6, approaching the Condemned Bays…**_

"You okay?" Asked Trey as Blair paused and leaned against a wall.

Blair nodded, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, feeling the unnaturally high temperature of his face. The emotional upheavals of the past few days, combined with almost continuous space travel across innumerable time zones and differing planetary gravities had left him susceptible to whatever bug was obviously having it's fun with him now – at least the fever was low level and not debilitating.

Trey activated his comlink, since they were too near the outside of the station for any trackers to get an easy fix. "I'll try and contact Dimitri, tell him there are two of us –"

Seeing Trey's eyes widen with hope, Blair asked, "What is it?"

Trey looked up. "Gage is here!"

"Are you sure?"

Trey held out the link so Blair could read the message. They looked at each other and shrugged. "It's worth a try, he might be able to help?" Blair suggested.

Trey nodded, activating the comlink, closing his eyes in nostalgic pain as Gage's familiar voice came over the link. Breathlessly he filled the archaeologist in on the situation and their current position. Gage promptly vowed to come to them, and see what they could do get Blair and Trey off the station a.s.a.p.

**_Promenade Shopping Mall Rotunda, Halfway Space Station_…**

Race winced as a pair of toddler twins suddenly set up a howling duet at being refused candy. Unwilling to dial down his hearing, he carefully imagined the multitude of sounds in his head as individual strands, like hair, then separated out the sound of the infantile caterwauling and deleted it from his hearing range, walking slowly onward.

_**(Next level up, about five hundred yards ahead…**)._

"Oh yes, sir," the sales assistant enthused, "absolutely _dernier cri_, sir."

Gage eyed the outfit he was wearing in the full-length mirror. It was stylishly, well cut and discreetly expensive. Unfortunately it had too many small, hard to manipulate buttons. Race's Sentinel patience would never make it beyond the first two and the tunic would end up a cleaning rag. Ruefully he shook his head, "I'm a Bonded Guide."

The sales assistant inclined his head in equally rueful understanding as he took the outfit from Gage and replaced it while Butler redressed. Smiling, Gage exited the store and meandered along. Problematically for him, the "uniformed" look was trendy this year, and while many items of clothing looked quite good when worn, they all tended towards lots of buttons, toggles, tassles and other finicky, fiddly fastenings that a Sentinel wanting to bond would get exasperated with in about two seconds flat. He needed T-shirts and sweatpants, clothing that could be easily shucked, able to take a little careless discarding and still bounce back.

Abruptly his personal comlink, not the Dark Angel wristcom Race had issued him, beeped urgently. Moving to the safety rail overlooking the lower levels out of the flow of traffic, Gage answered.

Race's insipient headache disappeared as he simultaneously spotted Gage and his hearing locked onto the Guide's vital signs and voice. He began to move forward urgently as Butler's heartbeat accelerated, the Guide's – to Race – clearly heard voice agitated. "_What…?_ Trey…!"

Keegan froze at the name he'd only heard for the first time a few minutes before from Saran, dialling his hearing up high.

"Blair…no…yes…yes…Look, where are you? Right, I'm on my way!" Snapping the comlink shut and shoving it into his jeans pocket, Gage ran a distracted hand through his hair as he tried to work out the quickest route, barely able to believe that both his best friends were not only here but hunted! With a sudden tingling at the base of his skull, some instinct made him glance downwards.

For a frozen moment, Sentinel and Guide stared at each other amidst the buffeting bedlam of several thousand shoppers, then, for the first time in his life, Gage panicked – and bolted.

The instinct to chase that which flees is almost irresistible, and Race Keegan didn't even try. As he sprinted, Race held it together long enough to activate his wristcom. When he heard Saran's voice, he barked out the location of Logan and Sandburg that he'd just overheard, terminating the link before the startled LEO Commissioner could begin to ask how he knew. Dropping his arm to his side, Race Keegan was happy to be swamped by the furious Sentinel whose Guide had dared to run from him, speeding up his pace.

_**Outer Habitat Ring 6, Halfway Space Station…**_

Trey favoured moving slightly deeper into the abandoned section. Blair wasn't so sure. As they debated the issue at an intersection, Blair uttered a sudden cry of pain as fire skimmed his shoulder, followed an instant later by the unmistakable hiss of a discharging laser pistol. The next shot hit the wall near their heads so they reversed direction, Blair's hand coming up to press against the stinging pain in his shoulder where the first shot had skimmed off a layer of skin. A huge shape loomed in front of them, laser pistol clenched in one meaty hand.

Trey blanched as he and Blair separated, each one edging apart to stand next to opposite walls on the corridor so the hulking figure could not cover both of them with the pistol. "Grokk!"

"Who?" Blair looked at the huge monstrosity blocking their way. Well over six feet tall, massive bloated head completely bald, with a pockmarked beetroot face and small, close set eyes, the man looked as if he'd been hewed out of a convenient mountain side. Those tiny, mean eyes were fixed on Trey with a hatred that was tangible.

"He's a paedophile." Trey explained with open contempt. "He's responsible for the rape and murder of over two dozen children from here to the Horsehead Nebula. I thought he was rotting on Styx until he apparently escaped."

Grokk vented a short, coarse laugh. "I popped their necks like kindling," he sneered,"just like I'm gonna do yours. Told you I'd come for you."

As an empath, Blair was fully aware of Trey's extreme fear, but the young detective's voice was rock-steady and cool as he taunted. "You didn't do so well last time, did you, Grokky? There were plenty of things you were going to do me, you told me all about them, didn't you? Pity you couldn't get it on, Grokky, you couldn't get it up because I wasn't a little boy, could you Grokky, or should I say Wilberforce?" He laughed, saying in a loud, taunting aside, "That's Grokk's name, isn't it, _Wiiiilberrrrforcee!_"

Grokk's face contorted with insane fury. "_SHUT UP!_" He screamed, the words echoing eerily. His voice shook as he pointed the laser pistol squarely at Trey, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth as he ranted vile expletives without pausing for breath for nearly a minute before winding down, "You're gonna be on your belly, _begging_ me to kill you, _begging –_"

Trey laughed loudly, cutting through the crazed tirade. "We've been there, _Wilberforce_, and you couldn't get that on either. Trouble with _Wilberforce, _here, is that he's very limited in scope. He hasn't really got the imagination to be a good torturer –"

Grokk's eyes bulged in lunatic hysteria, gasping in his rage. "_NOW, y_ou die right now –"

"Oh, I _DON'T think so!"_

They all jumped at the laconic voice that echoed in cultured tones from behind Grokk's position. As the behemoth turned to face him, Saran pressed the button on the small six-inch long metal tube he held in his left hand, and the webbing shot out, enveloping Grokk in it's tangling strands. More BWSS - based on the _Spiderman_ comics, the slightly sticky webbing was an ideal, non-lethal way to safely secure a thrashing, jerking individual without getting near enough to be injured. The thick, main cord leading from the web back into the tube remained firmly in Saran's hand. As Grokk's berserk flailing caused the web to tighten till he was trussed like a turkey, Saran moved his hand slightly and the webbing followed the directional touches till the escaped convict was standing upright, still trying to get free, eyes rolling and flecks of foam appearing at the edges of his mouth.

Before Blair and Trey could do more than stare in astonishment, Blair was abruptly pulled back against something big, solid and warm, a large hand clamped around his neck over his mouth, another arm snaking around his mid-section. He felt his feet leave the floor as the Dark Sentinel simply hitched him up and began to walk backwards out of the way with Blair securely held. Trey's eyes flitted between the threat of Saran and the rapidly departing Sentinel who'd snatched his friend, torn between conflicting needs.

Saran dismissed Blair and Ellison as the Dark Sentinel manhandled his wild empath away, sure the big Dark Angel could handle his problem. "You have a choice!" He focussed Logan on him.

Trey blinked uncertainly. "Uh….?"

"You can submit as my Guide, or you can run, in which case I release Grokk." Saran said with flat, chilling indifference.

Trey swallowed, his wide eyes flicking from Saran, standing idly, one eyebrow raised, to the now confined monster. He'd rather be anywhere than near Saran, but to let Grokk loose was unacceptable. He nodded slowly.

"I can't hear you." Saran challenged, determined to crush any rebellion.

"I'll be your Guide." Trey whispered so quietly that only Sentinel ears could hear.

Half of Saran was ruthlessly satisfied at Logan's soft capitulation, the other half horrified that Trey genuinely believed he would really let a monster like Grokk loose. Reaching into his pocket, Saran drew out a temporary, flexible Guide collar that was worn until the Sentinel's chosen body artist created the identifying tattoo around the Guide's neck, and tossed it to the young man. "Put it on."

His fingers trembling as they had not when he'd just faced down Grokk, Trey licked dry lips but obediently placed the thin collar around his neck and fastened it as he would a necklace. Despite it's large size, the collar seemed to press against his windpipe and jugular, something he dimly realised through the roaring in his ears was psychosomatic.

"Follow me." Saran ordered harshly, using the thick cord to steer the struggling Grokk easily through the corridors towards the Condemned Bays.

Trey bit his lip, fear gripping him, but he managed to get out, "You said you wouldn't release him?"

His tone was unconsciously pleading; Saran tamped down the part of him that softened. "I'm not going to." He still couldn't resist being reassuring. They came to a huge, heavy metal hatch door, six feet high by three feet wide. Saran had no intention of being lumbered with Grokk while he tried to get the child abuser more securely transported back to Styx. Saran had no qualms over what he was about to do. He viewed it with the clinical detachment of the vet destroying a rabid dog. His only concern today was bringing his Guide fully to heel.

Hitting the control his side of the hatch, Saran and a baffled Trey watched as the door slid back. Pushing the bound creature through, Saran released his grasp on the tube and with a firm boot, sent the entangled Grokk rolling down the wide passage until he was stopped by the bodies of the people in the dimly lit space up ahead. A spreading pool of silence was formed as those shadowy figures looked up at the source of the sudden obstruction. These were watchful, empty eyed people with scruffy clothing and grimy features. Trey swallowed again as he realised the hatch led straight into the depths of Down Below.

"That is Grokk!" Saran's carefully modulated tones resounded clearly to the most distant speaker. "He is not a nice man. His favourite hobby is the rape, torture and murder of children, preferably under six years of age. Twenty-three victims is his total, including Yeishan, who was too weak to run because he had leukaemia, and Hermie, who was his parents' only child after scrimping to pay for fertility treatment. Enjoy."

Saran hit the hatch control, which slid closed with slight _clank_ sound just as the first scream began, making Trey jump. Reaching out a hand, the LEO Commissioner took his Guide by the collar and began to walk him rapidly back to the inhabited rings, blithely ignoring the fading shrieks and sickening thuds behind them. Trey knew that not enough of Grokk would be found to fill a thimble. The denizens of Down Below were stone cold killers down to the least babe in its cradle, but there were Certain Things that they took a very, very dim view of.

Unfortunately, now all his mind had to focus on was what about to happen to him.

**_Two blocks from the Excelsior Hotel, Halfway Station_…**

Gage leaned against a support pillar, drawing in calming breaths and ignoring the sidelong looks from the more salubrious guests that frequented the up market hotels such as the Excelsior, where Race had got one of the penthouse suites. Frantic thoughts whirled kaleidoscopically in his head, as panic-induced adrenaline finally subsided. The urge to keep running was battling with the urge to find the safety of his Sentinel. What should he do? Where should he go? Where could he go? What about Trey and Blair? How long –

He was sent flying forward to hit the floor, gasping anew as the wind was knocked out of him. His arms were wrenched behind his back and he felt the cool plastic of restraints before he was yanked unceremoniously to his feet to come face to face with his very pissed off Sentinel. Make that very, very _angry _Sentinel. There was nothing of Race Keegan in those eyes, only the pure Sentinel.

Two patrol officers started forward, only to stop as Race yanked down his shirt collar and they saw the tattoo around Gage's throat. No one with sanity ever interfered with a Sentinel and his or her Guide, even if, as now, the Sentinel's intent seemed obviously homicidal. Twisting his hand in Gage's collar, Race almost dragged him along to the Excelsior, people cleaving a path before him magically. The doorman opened the golden doors of the plush Excelsior and the bellhops backed off as Race set his Guide staggering into the lift, his ferocious expression cowing everyone.

Gage flinched as the computer announced their floor and he was unceremoniously removed from the elevator and marched to their suite. Gage tried to fight down his fear at the thunderous expression on his sentinel's face. Slamming and locking the door, Keegan bundled him forward and threw him onto the bed. Gage bounced as he was unable to break his fall with his hands secured behind him. He licked his lips, trying to find appeasing words, but Race loomed over him. Yanking off Gage's boots, the Sentinel ruthlessly stripped him, savagely ripping the cuffs of his shirt to get them around the restraints, hurling the clothing aside, before gripping his naked Guide and flipping him face down on the bedspread. With his hands cuffed behind him, Gage could barely move. There was a sharp, slithering hiss and raising his head slightly to catch sight of Keegan's reflection in a mirror, he briefly glimpsed Race begin to unbuckle the wide leather belt of his pants before the Sentinel moved out of view….Gage's breathing seemed to freeze solid in his chest…_no! No, Race wouldn't, he wouldn't_….but the truth was that for all the theoretical rights of a Bonded Guide, the Sentinel in practice could do pretty much what they wanted, deliver any punishment they deemed appropriate with impunity. If Race decided to punish his Guide by raping him, no one would care a galac's worth. Hearing the Sentinel approach but unable to see him, he trembled in dread of what was about to happen…

Gage yelled in shocked pain as the belt came down across his buttocks, involuntary tears springing to his eyes at the agonising blow. Again the belt came down, cracking across his backside and he jerked, crying out. The third one whistled slightly, Gage clenching his teeth against the agony, tears of pain coursing freely down his cheeks. A fourth time the belt came down on his unprotected backside, then again….

After the tenth one, Gage dimly heard Race move through the roaring in his head, but his backside throbbed and he could feel the heat coming off as if his skin were on fire. The belt was placed in his line of vision atop the left bedside table and he heard Race walk away. Trying to calm his breathing, despite the pain, Gage knew it could have been much worse. Not a single blow of the belt had cut his body or drawn blood, and, despite the fact that his throbbing butt was undoubtedly red raw from the thrashing, Race had carefully measured each blow so that there would probably not even be any bruises tomorrow. His sentinel's footsteps returned, then the restraints on his wrists were pulled away and he was flipped onto his back, the bed's soft, silken quilt providing some refreshingly cool cushioning for his tender posterior. Before Gage could gather himself, Race lay down next to and partially atop him, one leg thrown over his to pin him down. Race's own torso pressured his and he found himself face to face with his still extremely pissed off Sentinel.

"How long have you been with the underground railroad?"

Gage hesitated.

"Do you want another ten?" Race enquired harshly.

Mutely Gage shook his head. "Since I was in my teens."

"How did you get involved?"

"I met Blair Sandburg – he's an anthropologist – on a dig in Africa, he and Simon Banks needed some help, so…"

"Sandburg was the other kid in the tree with the rhino." Race surmised, then added coldly, "You're still with them."

It was a statement, not a question, so Gage didn't answer.

"You would have helped them escape, even from me."

Race's tone was harsh, but Gage could hear the hidden hurt beneath, understanding that the Sentinel perceived it as rejection. "Their Sentinels…aren't you."

Race's face remained uncomprehending, but he _was_ listening. Gage risked raising his hand and placing it on Race's shoulder, stroking down to the elbow in gentle, repetitive, motions, relief flooding him when Race tensed but did not deny him the contact. "Race, you've never shown me anything but consideration as your Guide. You've been thoughtful, good humoured and gentle. I feel…_safe…_whenever I'm with you." Gage took a deep breath, then went on passionately, "But we both know that the laws protecting empaths, especially Bonded Guide empaths, as just normal citizens aren't worth the paper they're written on. You chased me, tied me up, and dragged me several hundred metres, with clearly violent intent, in front of nearly a hundred people, not one of whom bothered to interfere from the instant they spotted my tattoo. That belt you've got is genuine cured Kenya Rhino hide and it can flay the skin off a man. If you wanted to you could beat me to a bloody pulp then repeatedly rape me and not only will nobody in this hotel try and stop you, they won't even care!"

Race made a sound of distress. "I wouldn't hurt you like that –"

Gage growled. "Race, that is my point. _You_ wouldn't, but what about everyone else? Blair Sandburg was kidnapped and enslaved by Alex Barnes for nearly three months – tortured and raped repeatedly. She didn't retreat to some mountaintop in the middle of nowhere, where no one could see - she had an apartment in a city. Her neighbours and the building staff must have _known_ at least some of what she was doing to Blair, but she acted as if he were her Guide, so nobody bothered. These people, day after day, saw Blair when it was obvious he had been beaten and brutalised, yet didn't lift a finger to help him because they thought he was Alex Barnes' Guide. If she'd killed Blair and not the other way around, not a single person would have batted an eyelid!"

Consciously calming his strident tone, Gage went on, "I know things are a lot different from the early days when Sentinels didn't know what they were doing and abused their Guides from ignorance, but as far as I am concerned, even one Sentinel with Barnes-like tendencies is one Sentinel too much. So yes, Race I am part of the Underground Railroad and I will do everything I can to help them so you'll just have to keep punishing me, I guess."

Race captured Gage's chin with his hand and met his eyes. "I didn't beat you because you're part of the Underground Railroad. I did it because you ran from me." He corrected bluntly. "Don't ever do that again. Everything else, we work around."

Gage nodded his head submissively. "I hated keeping it a secret from you," he confessed, "having to hide in the john to check my comlink messages and worrying about not wiping them well enough in case they were traced. I'm not one of those people who think Sentinels are monsters disguised as men," he reassured Race, "but my empathic abilities started when I was just old enough to understand what a problem they could be," Gage explained. "For many empaths, it just isn't worth the hassle because the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. I'm a good archaeologist, respected and in demand, but if you wanted to you, could stop my career dead in the water, so I'd have to run." Gage ignored the way his Sentinel's hands tightened warningly, Race's fingers pressing into the 4 parallel grooved scars that marked the leopard's claw marks. "Blair is an anthropologist and a very good one, Trey has the highest clear up rate of cases in the HSS PD. They're not mediocre people who've got nothing to lose by bonding."

"I get it." Race growled. "I'm not thrilled, but I get it. As much as possible, I'll try to turn a blind eye to what you need to do to help your friends, _but,_" he locked eyes with his Guide, "I want to know everything, and I do mean everything, that goes on - names, dates, times, people, places. No more sneaking off into the john for clandestine com calls."

Gage smiled weakly. "No problem, it lacked a certain…_je ne sais qoi_."

Satisfied with his Guide's compliance, the Sentinel decided he had waited long enough and growled out, "We bond, now."

It was an order. Gage relaxed and tilted his head back, allowing complete access to his throat. He had run from his Sentinel; Race needed to dominate him, to have the total submission of his Guide. With a growl, Race bit down, his Guide would be thoroughly claimed…

_To be continued…_

© 2002 C D Stewart


	4. Chapters 7 & 8

_See Disclaimers, etc, in Chapters I-II_

**Chapter VII – The Bonding Of A Dark Guide**

_**Promenade Shopping Rotunda…**_

Blair's brain did not kick start itself back into gear until they entered the Rotunda. His captor simply strode through the crowd holding him lightly off the floor like a lioness holding a cub in its mouth. In his ears, Blair suddenly heard the jeering laughter of Alex Barnes, images of the damage that the much faster and stronger _male_ Dark Sentinel could inflict on him sending hot knives of sheer horror into the pit of his stomach. He dangled uselessly as gibbering panic tried to batter its way into his thinking process – he had no mini-disruptor on his palm this time, the Sentinel could break his wrist long before his fingers managed to grab the Vibro-knife –

The crowds ahead thickened, since one of the leading department stores was having a sale. The wide lower floor was packed with bargain hunters, people milling around outside as the Dark Sentinel started to edge through. With inspiration born of desperation, Blair took his chance.

With his one free arm he suddenly jabbed it towards the back of the store and bellowed, "_FIIIRRRE!_"

As one being, several hundred people sharply reversed direction from trying to get _in_ to trying to get _out._ Surging backwards, they enmeshed the Dark Sentinel, buffeting him and Blair, and an instant later the younger man was literally knocked from Jim's grasp. His legs pumping before he even touched the floor, Blair went in low and shot off through the crowd like a coursed hare.

Jim detonated, white-hot fury flashing through every cell of his being, obliterating the perfume of bonding heat in it's fury. Filled with purely murderous intent, he took off after his prey.

Blair had no idea where he was running to, the important thing was that he was running _away_. He took a corridor where there were less people and speeded up, stabs of pain in his thighs, heart hammering against his chest, lungs burning as they sucked in air. Racing along a now empty passageway, a pair of double doors automatically slid back as he approached and he dived in like a gopher down its hole, stumbling to a halt, head down, winded and panting. Panic brought his head back up again sharply, but suddenly a wave of heat enveloped him and the area spun dizzily, causing him to slump weakly against a pillar.

The Dark Guide raised his head. He had had quite enough. He was sick of being chased, grabbed, buffeted, manhandled and generally having his life thrown into turmoil. There was a void inside of him, empty, aching, lonely, that would only be filled by merging with another mind. Hunger, overwhelming need, obliterated any other consideration.

The pillar was a tree trunk? The Dark Guide looked around him with interest and speculation. An arboretum, a huge one, built to give Halfway's residents access to the greenery and flowers that the human psyche had been proven to require as much as air. He smiled slowly, pleased; yes, this would be an ideal proving ground. Sharp ears, even though not Sentinel hyperactive, picked up approaching sounds. Quickly moving forward, he rolled like a dog in a nearby flowerbed, then moved towards a nearby tree.

Able to scent the Guide again after the initial explosion of fury, the Dark Sentinel hurtled through the doors and skidded to a halt as all his senses bar touch were assaulted. Quaint stone paths let off in a variety of directions through the trees, flowers and shrubs, the distant, far too rapid to be human heartbeats proclaiming the existence of birds and small mammals. A soft exhalation of breath drew his eyes upward. The Dark Guide was standing insouciantly balanced on the topmost branches of a nearby tree, beyond the Sentinel's reach. Rage surged anew at this mocking scorn and he snarled.

Their eyes locked, pale to dark blue. Tilting his head to one side in imitation of the Dark Sentinel's listening attitude, the Dark Guide examined him as if looking for something, then gracefully turned and scampered away through the foliage, as sure footed as if he was part monkey. About to give chase, the Dark Sentinel paused as he processed what had just happened. Yes, the Guide's gaze had been taunting, but not scornful. There had been hunger there too, to match the answering appetite in the Dark Sentinel. Not mockery, then, but…challenge?

The Dark Guide was not some weak thing to be chased down like a frightened rabbit; he demanded proof that he could be protected, nurtured, safely shielded by _his_ Sentinel. The rage ebbed, replaced by something much sweeter: anticipation. His Dark Guide wanted to play.

Accessing James Ellison's eidetic memory supplied that the doors behind him were the only entry and egress. With casual disregard for anyone wanting to come in – his Sentinel senses had detected no human heartbeats other than his own and the Dark Guide's already present – he activated the Dark Angel override code on his wristcom that locked down the arboretum, secure that only he could open the place up again. He glanced up, considering the trees. They were tall, venerable statesmen planted as saplings by the initial crew of Halfway Space Station, but they were inaccessible to him. The topmost branches might hold the Dark Guide, but Jim's weight, pure corded muscle though it was, would not be borne. Nor, assuming he could spot the Dark Guide from the ground, was knocking him from his perch an option – the risk of injuring his Guide was simply too great. The Guide must be herded to where there were no more trees, forcing him to the ground. A large, much squashed flowerbed told him that the Guide had taken steps to disguise his scent, but that could be overcome.

Moving carefully, he set off, not in the Guide's direction, but on a parallel course, carefully extending his senses to the things around him, identifying scents, sounds and sights, then eliminating each one by one as he whittled it down, seeking one heartbeat, one scent, one figure….

_**Apartment 207, Gemini Block C, Halfway…**_

Saran entered the master bedroom of Trey's apartment after securely locking the front door behind him and bolting it, then marching his Guide through the hallway smartly, aware that his Sentinel instincts were pushing him to display his ownership of his Guide here, in Trey's inner sanctum.

"Strip!" He ordered curtly.

Head slightly lowered, Trey silently removed his jacket and shirt, pulled off his boots, slipped out of his pants and boxers, then turned and lay flat, face-up on the bed, making no attempt to cover his nudity, arms down by his side, head slightly turned to stare at the wall, still except for the faint twitch of his fingers against the bedspread.

Saran removed his shirt and boots, but went no further. Normally First Bonding occurred when both Sentinel and Guide were in full heat, but both he and Logan were only in the first stages; it could take a week or more as the process gradually developed, and Saran simply didn't have time to wait, he had too much to do. As he went and lay down on his side next to Logan, facing the empath and propping his head up on his hand, Saran acknowledged that the main advantage of Bonding Heat was that it removed all embarrassment and awkwardness about lack of clothing from the procedure, unlike now, when he felt definitely self-conscious even though the empath wasn't looking at him.

Reaching out his left hand, he placed it lightly and firmly against Trey's cheek, gently pressing his fingertips down over his ear, hair, neck and shoulder to the point where the scapula ended and the arm began; there he let his hand rest. Saran had no intention of physically mapping his Guide's entire body, not wanting to waste any more time on something that would be uncomfortable and embarrassing for both of them without being in full bonding heat.

He did, however, need to imprint the basic nature of his Guide on his senses. First, he let his fingertips measure the feel and warmth of Trey's skin, book marking the texture. Moving his hand to Trey's chest, he closed his eyes and dialled up his hearing, imprinting the beat of Trey's heart. Every human heart beat in it's own unique rhythm, just as each human had his or her own body scent, retina pattern and fingerprints. Finally, he dialled up his nose, breathing in the tangy spice of Trey's odour, parting his lips and letting it wash over his taste buds. He could now pick out "his" Guide in a crowd of thousands without having to look for him.

Gathering his mental energy, Saran concentrated, reaching out with that power as if it were fine tendrils of brilliant, scintillating silver-blue, to meet…nothing. Trey's mental shields were completely down, his mind obediently submissive. Silver-blue enveloped gentle lavender, making the psychic connection, opening up new neural pathways and the telepathic/empathic links with satisfaction as the Sentinel meshed with the Guide….but…..

Saran hesitated, vaguely aware that Trey was _too _compliant. It was not that Trey had accepted the bond, it was that he…..wasn't there? Reaching up with his hand, Saran turned Trey's face towards him. The young man's face was blank, his eyes neutral, but banked behind, Saran could see fear. No anticipation, no anger, not even resignation, just fear. Unconsciously he frowned and felt the tiny movement of the springs as Trey pressed himself back into the mattress, as if trying to increase the distance between them. Irritation surged, but with it, memory. When he was a child, he'd come across three of his cousins tormenting a tiny puppy. Harassed on every side, the puppy had simply curled up in a ball and lain very still, as if hoping it wouldn't be seen by the predators plaguing it. The puppy had been rescued and the cousins severely punished; now, however, Saran recognised the similarity between his long gone pet and the young detective. Logan was making himself as inconspicuous as possible, still as a rabbit hoping a fox would walk on by. Saran softened slightly despite his irritation over having a Guide forced on him by his own primitive genes, and heard Logan's heart rate increase in fear in response to his expression. Trey Logan had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and could not be blamed.

Moving so he covered the other man, Saran cupped Trey's face, holding him so he couldn't look away. Carefully, ensuring he didn't cause any synaptic damage, Saran completed the mental bonding, slowly merging his own psyche fully with the young man, sending reassuring feelings to Logan as he did so. _You are mine, I won't hurt you, its all right_.

Trey's eyes widened as the words wound themselves into his cerebellum, but infinitesimally, he relaxed. Saran had made no attempt to bombard Trey with his own memories, or impose his will on him, so Trey carefully shoved his own traumas into a little room in his back brain and slammed the door, "encouraging" the Sentinel to pass over.

Saran glanced at his watch, deciding to remain as he was for another half hour, just to reinforce the bond, before getting them ready to sort out Halfway's administrative minions and then leave for Federation.

**_Arboretum, Halfway Space Station_…**

The Dark Guide clambered down the tree and strolled out onto the wide, grassy knoll situated at the far end of the "wood" that was against the wall of the dome, directly under a canopy of glittering stars that blurred slightly when viewed through the translucent dome roof. His intent to double back to the doors had been foiled by the Dark Sentinel, whose tangential movements through the arboretum had made it too dangerous to approach those sections of the trail where he would have had to come down to ground level before re-climbing the trees. However, there should be a small service hatch, discreetly tucked behind an artistically placed boulder or something nearby –

A soft sound came from behind him, and he turned almost lazily to face the Dark Sentinel. The larger man halted a short distance away, his slow smile uncomfortably reminiscent of shark, exuding a smug, pleased self-satisfaction at doing something extremely clever, like a dog sent chasing after a stick who'd come back with a gold bar in it's mouth. The Dark Guide arched an eyebrow and shifted lightly on his feet, waiting.

The Dark Sentinel noted the balancing and grinned anticipatorily. So, his prize still wanted to play. The Dark Guide's nose twitched as his senses picked up the Sentinel's bonding musk due to their proximity and hunger flared even brighter in his dark blue eyes, colouring them almost ebony. Consciously trying to increase the amount of musk he was producing, the Dark Sentinel nevertheless kept his attention focussed on the Guide as he feinted suddenly.

Not fooled by the movement, the Guide danced backwards, not left or right, either of which motions would have put him in grabbing range. Warily they measured each other, making aborted movements and little feints. The Dark Guide was certainly capable of defending himself when the need arose, the Dark Sentinel saw, but his shorter stature meant that for some defensive moves, he over-reached himself. As he dodged the Dark Sentinel again, Blair took up a defensive stance that left him precariously balanced. Instantly, the Sentinel lunged and as Blair tried to evade, he stumbled slightly. The minute break in rhythm was all the Dark Sentinel needed; changing direction on a dime, he brought the Guide down to the ground, twisting slightly so that he took the brunt of the impact, instantly rolling over and pinning his prey.

This close, Dark Guide musk swamped him; he didn't even hear the tearing of seams as he pulled at the snagging, rough, coarse things on himself and the other man that were obstructing his need to map his Guide. The full weight of his mind swelled forward, glowing scarlet, hungry, hungry

_To hit the adamantine mental shields of the Dark Guide_.

Shaking his head at the unexpected recoil of psychic energy, the Dark Sentinel growled, the previous rage beginning to rise again at this defiance. His right hand tightened painfully in the soft curling hair, beginning to force the head back to expose the throat, instinct urging him to simply take what he wanted – he needed, he _had to have_.

The Dark Guide's eyes were so deep sapphire as to be almost black as they met the icy anger of the Sentinel's pale silver-blue gaze. Despite his anger and the way his left hand had tightened warningly around the Guide's throat as he used his greater weight to immobilise him, the thumb of that hand unconsciously rubbed back and forth under the Dark Guide's jaw soothingly. Despite his resistance, the Dark Guide let out a sub-vocal whimper of pleasure at the sensation, which the Dark Sentinel heard. He looked down at his prize, again re-considering.

The Dark Guide would not be anyone's pet, or toy, or plaything. He would _NOT_ be subjugated.

But, he could be _PERSUADED_ to relaxed, soothed……

Retaining his holds in hair and around throat, but relaxing the grip of his left hand, the Dark Sentinel did not send another psychic surge, instead lowering his head, he placed his mouth against the Guide's neck, just under the right ear at the juncture of the lower jaw, then let out of a soft puff of hot breath that trembled the small silver earring, smiling against the flesh as a shudder of reaction went through the Guide. Yes, this was the way to do it, not aggression, but persuasion. Gently, the Dark Sentinel gave a slight tug on the earring with his teeth, then he moved to that spot just below the ear, nibbling the sensitive spot, rewarded by a clearly voiced mewl of need and delight.

He flicked out his tongue and tasted the essence of his Guide, nipping and nuzzling his way down the jaw to the base of his Dark Guide's throat, which arched back invitingly this time. The hands that had been braced against his shoulders tightened their grip to keep him there instead of push him away. Carefully he sent out another tendril of psychic energy, which touched and wrapped itself round a strand of gleaming gold. No barriers now, none. The Dark Guide's mental shields were completely gone, he was utterly vulnerable to the bombarding emotions of Halfway's millions of inhabitants unless protected by the mental shields of his Sentinel. The Dark Sentinel cocooned them both in the warm, brightly hued void of merging, as they sank into their need.

Scarlet caressed gold, seeping into it, drawing it to it, rejoicing in the union of minds, thoughts and emotions. Then the Dark Sentinel's mental power found scar tissue. Pausing instantly, he probed, psychically "touching" partially created neural pathways that had been forced into being, hypersensitive neurons that flinched like toothache from the empathic caress, damaged synaptic connections. Protective distress and possessive anger came to the fore. The Other had tried to do this, had tried to claim by force what had never belonged to it anyway. The Dark Guide had been hurt by the cruel, crude attempts to crush his mind and annihilate his will, destroy his sense of self. Making sounds of distress, the Dark Sentinel halted the merging and gathered his Guide to him, cuddling him as protective instincts activated and his Sentinel hyperactive sense of touch stroked over physical scars to match mental ones.

The Dark Guide wriggled in his embrace, hugging and whispering, reaching out with his own mind and drawing the Sentinel back into the bond, soothing the anxious resistance. The Other was of no account, inconsequential, nothing. He belonged only to his true Sentinel, his precious Dark Sentinel, who would guard him, defend and protect him, care for him tenderly. There was total trust in the Dark Guide as he opened his mind completely to the scarlet aura of his chosen Sentinel.

Moving carefully, the Dark Sentinel finished opening up the new pathways, creating new mental links as the brain chemistry of both men irrevocably altered to accept none but each other, life-bonded, their union only ending in death. Still wary of causing distress, the Dark Sentinel began to "map" his Guide's physical form, imprinting the Guide on his senses, so the Guide could be used as a baseline against which to measure all other sensory input. On his Dark Guide's shoulder there was red, tender skin that Jim Ellison's memories told the Dark Sentinel came from the discharge of energy weapon that had just skimmed the surface, doing no more damage than singing a few hairs and the outer skin layer, but still he snarled low in his throat until he remembered that the lesser Sentinel who had claimed the other Guide had eliminated that threat. Mollified, the Dark Sentinel continued exploring. He sniffed, nuzzled, stroked and explored, uttering a little growl every time his fingers touched some relic of hurt, such as the ear where the Other had burned something against it, the artificial back teeth that replaced those the Other had pulled out with pliers as punishment for some non-existent misdemeanour or just pleasure.

The Dark Guide hungered to be claimed; his eyes narrowed at the slow progression and, when the Sentinel finally reached his upper torso, he acted. As the Dark Sentinel traced the breastbone with his finger, the Dark Guide uttered a soft yelp. Instantly the Dark Sentinel reared back in anxiety, frightened that he caused hurt. Thus unbalanced, he was sent sliding off his prize by the Dark Guide's upward surge, momentarily confused and unprepared for the Dark Guide's lunge – not _away_, but _at_ him. With a startled "oomph", he was pushed down by the impact of his Guide, now the shorter man doing the straddling.

"_Claim me_." The order was a barely intelligible guttural growl, backed up by him doing some biting and nipping of his own, suddenly developing an octopus-number of arms that roved and explored.

The Dark Sentinel used his greater strength to flip his Guide and pin him again. For an instant, he held the Guide immobile, mentally probing to ensure that the Guide had no fear of him hurting him, that he truly wanted this. Then, with matching grins, they began to play: tickling, batting each other, biting, scratching, rolling over and over on the moss, noogieing, squeezing and pinching, happy chortles of glee echoing in the dome. Eventually, the Dark Sentinel grabbed his wriggling, squirming, giggling Dark Guide and secured him by use of his own greater weight and reach.

Dialling up all his senses, the Dark Sentinel mapped his Guide millimetre by millimetre from the top of his scalp to his soles, revelling in the soft catch of breath and shivers of need that rippled through his Dark Guide, spending several minutes playing with the small silver ornament in his right nipple because that elicited gasps and yelps of delight, before moving on. The many small scars and healed broken bones caused by the abuse of the Other were given individual attention, each one stroked, patted, kissed, nuzzled. Using the flat palm of his hand, a Sentinel could "ghost" it across his or her Guide's body, their ultra sensitive senses detecting breaks, soft tissue injuries, even down to invading germs and other microbes. The Dark Guide had no appendix, ruptured by a kick that his now accessible – to his Sentinel - memories told was explained away as a fall. His kidneys were fully functional but had been bruised by beatings. The Dark Guide's back was criss-crossed by thin white lines and his lower arms by shallower versions of similar cuts – something deep inside told the Dark Sentinel they were important, and he tucked away their presence even as his Guide encouraged him to move on and ignore them.

Obediently the Dark Sentinel's exploration moved lower and for the first time the Dark Guide showed a flash of anxiety and distress. On his genitals were small, puckered burn scars, extending from the base along the length of the penis and on the two soft sacs underneath, intermingled with tiny horizontal lines from wounds inflicted by a small knife. Gently rubbing the base of his Guide's back as they lay on their sides facing each other, the Dark Sentinel's sensory scan detected internal scarring caused by healed fissures and tears in the rectum. Mentally and emotionally, the Dark Guide began to withdraw, and instantly the Dark Sentinel sent more psychic power along the synaptic nerves, holding the connections open and preventing the withdrawal, snuggling his embarrassed Guide close. The Other, not content with verbal abuse, mental cruelty and physical torture, had humiliated her slave; flashes of anguished memory crossed the link. Of being beaten semi-conscious and then tied, face down and naked, repeatedly raped with dildos and other objects, or by "big", cruel men sadistically delighted to do the Other's perverted bidding while she watched, laughing, and taunted the Dark Guide; shame because his body had sometimes responded automatically to the pressure on his prostrate, arousing him, evoking mocking laughter and more brutality. He had tried to fight, to appease, to run….

Somehow the Dark Guide was now being hugged, his misty eyes wiped with a big thumb, the nape of his neck being massaged reassuringly. He was a brave Guide, a clever Guide, a resourceful, ingenious Guide. After all, was it not he instead of the Other who still lived? Brutal the Other had been, but stupid, and she had paid for her stupidity. The Dark Guide was perfect, clever, cuddly, he belonged to the Dark Sentinel, and no one would hurt him, ever again!

"Claimed and marked, Guide." The Dark Sentinel rumbled the ancient ritual vow from deep in his belly as he settled down, tucking himself around his prize, caressing silky curls.

"Claimed and marked, Sentinel." The Dark Guide spoke the oath in return, snuggling close to his only Blessed Protector, his precious Dark Sentinel's comforting warmth….

**_Arboretum, the following "morning", Halfway Space Station_…**

Blair's eyes crossed as they looked down at the blade of grass that was aggravating one nostril. He twitched his face to one side but as soon as he relaxed his nose was right back in the way again. Conceding defeat, he sat up, then froze mid-stretch as he realised that he was _au naturale_. Right next to him, a much larger human form was snoring gently, also in his birthday suit, and very clearly masculine, as Mother Nature decreed the adult human male should demonstrate of a morning. Automatically Blair glanced up in alarm at the vast panorama displayed through the crystal clear Plexiglas of the dome, but all space traffic over the arboretum had been banned after the Unfortunate Incident when a passing sight-seeing shuttle of dignitaries – including the then British King-Emperor, Viceroy of At'Ehn IV, the IFP Vice-President, Ohnmar of the Valyrian Free Worlds, King of the Azca Unity and Maharani of the Asian Confederation – had passed close enough to the dome to get a bird's eye view of a booze-fuelled "stag night" that had gotten considerably out of hand and descended into an enthusiastic orgy, centre stage being the groom vigorously demonstrating on his "best man" his intended approach to the wedding night nuptials.

Blair's skin tingled and he was totally unsurprised to see on his own body the same marks and abrasions that adorned the slumbering frame next to him. Closing his eyes a moment, he centred himself, looking deep inside, again knowing with no surprise that he accepted the Bonding. He felt…secure, more than that, he felt necessary, he felt _wanted_. He –

_Trey._

Scrabbling to his feet, Blair spotted his pants and yanked them on, fumbling with the zip and fastening, cursing human beings who in five hundred years hadn't found anything better than the zip and button. The Dark Sentinel awoke instantly as his Guide's heartbeat spiked and sat up alertly, but Blair's sole intent was fixed on Trey. The youth would be terrified, absolutely scared out of his mind with fear. The other Sentinel, he'd looked very familiar but Blair couldn't place him, had shown nothing but an aloof, chill manner. Trey was vulnerable, he needed to be protected, _damn where was his shirt?_

The item was hanging from a nearby bush, somewhat worse for wear, but Blair simply yanked it on and grabbed his jacket and backpack. Wait, wait…boots, where were his boots?

Satisfying himself that no external threat was causing his Guide's – (_what a wonderful phrase, my Guide, all mine, mine, mine_) escalated respiration, Jim indifferently slipped on his pants. Clearly hearing the agitated mumbles about footwear, he yawned and eyed his Guide (_yippee!_) greedily. Why rush when they had this nice, cosy dell all to themselves? Intending to strip his Guide (_all mine_) off again, he approached as Blair, having found his boots, hopped manically on one leg as he tried to put the first one on.

"What are you doing?" Jim asked, watching the exhibition with a smile, but ready to scoop him up should his antics cause him to overbalance.

"_Doing_?" Blair wailed, glaring at him. "I've got to find Trey! He'll be scared out his mind!"

Belatedly Jim recalled the other empath in the corridor. "He'll be okay," he dismissed.

Blair glared at him. "Okay! He's my friend! I should have been protecting him, not in here…in here…in here… c_avorting…_ with you!"

Abruptly two big hands clamped on his arms and he was lifted a good three inches of the floor till he had a close up and personal view of the angry Ellison face. "We. Were. Bonding." Jim ground out. "You're mine, I claimed you and if I say so, you don't go anywhere!"

Aware that any second he was going to be stripped and pinned again, Blair frantically began damage control (_Obfuscate, Sandburg!_), "Hey, easy big guy!" He began to pat the broad shoulders soothingly. "I know, I didn't mean it. I'm yours, claimed and marked. You're my Sentinel, I belong to you." (_That's it, big guy, put me back on the floor._)

Jim released his Guide, sure that his authority was clear. "Your friend will be fine. Saran is a good guy."

Blair stopped dead. "Saran? _Saran Van den Mikhail?_ Oh my god!" Frantically he began to look around for his second boot, dropped when Neanderthal Man here decided to show he could lift nearly his own body weight in Sandburgs.

Jim scowled, offended by his Guide reacting to his friend's name as if Saran was a mad axe murderer, and sulkily wanting Blair's sole attention focussed on himself, not someone else.

Alert to the unwelcome re-emergence of the Dark Sentinel, Blair again took steps to placate. "Hey, big guy," (_damn, what's your name, fella_?) "I'm sure that LEO Commissioner Van den Mikhail is " (_an emotionally crippled head-case_) "a decent guy, but Trey's very " (_traumatised_) "shy, and I'm afraid that he'll be scared around some like Saran who is" (_a granite-faced, stone-hearted emotional retard Ice King_) "so….emotionally closed off."

Thankful that Sentinels were empaths who could feel emotions but not "telepaths" in the science-fiction sense (Guide and Sentinel could only speak telepathically to each other, no-one else), Blair realised that he'd managed to mollify the man as the Dark Sentinel stopped lurking in his eyes and settled down.

Jim made an executive decision. Inconvenient it might be, but he admired such loyalty to a friend, it would only increase the depth of his Guide's loyalty to him through their bond. They'd call in on Saran who should be at the precinct by this morning, and once assured that Trey was in once piece, Jim would take Blair back to Cascade and what promised to be a fun reunion with Simon Banks. "Okay." He conceded, running a hand through his much shorter crop of hair as he tried to figure out where he had tossed _his_ boots last night. Once again his Guide's heart rate skyrocketed and he turned back anxiously to find Blair frozen in place, gawping at him like a scandalised goldfish. "Blair?"

"_Ellison_." It was a squeaky whisper.

"Yeah?" Jim was confused; there was no threat to either of them.

Blair started to hyperventilate as a Classic Blair Sandburg DefCon 5 Deluxe Panic Attack stepped out from the wings to centre-stage, as Blair finally really looked at his Sentinel and his eyes registered the tattoo. "James Joseph Ellison. You're the Patriarch's Body Heir. High House Ellison!"

"You mean last night when you were treating my neck like your own little smorgasbord you never noticed this big, brightly coloured tattoo all the way around it?" Jim grinned.

"I was in bonding heat!" Blair began to bounce, waving his arms in agitation, "I wouldn't have noticed if you'd turned emerald green and sprouted antlers." He began to pace as the panic attack got into its stride. "I don't believe this. You're Jim Ellison, _the _Jim Ellison. I can't be your Guide –"

That got the Dark Sentinel's undivided attention. "You're mine!" The Guide was grabbed and pulled close. The Dark Sentinel would not tolerate resistance to that truth.

Blair managed to get his face out of Jim's shirt and look up at his Sentinel. "Jim, Alex Barnes was the only other living Dark Sentinel besides you in the past three hundred years." His mouth twisted in embarrassment and distaste. "The tabloids are _still_ full of salacious, graphic stories about what exactly she did to her Dark Guide slave. A lot of people know what happened to me when I was with her, especially in the Oligarchy and IFP, powerful, influential people. Your dad isn't going to want his son bonded to the Guide-whore who bashed in his previous Sentinel's skull, one who's damaged goods –"

Jim snarled, "What my father wants is a matter of total indifference to me and has been for fifteen years! You are my bonded Guide! _Nothing_ and _no one_ is going to separate us, and if anyone so much as looks at you sideways, I'll break their neck. Clear?"

"Yes, Jim." Blair switched to submissive mode, aware that unless he calmed Ellison down, he would be kept here, summarily stripped and bonded with again. He needed to get to Trey.

"Right, Saran and your friend will be at the precinct. We'll go there – after we've been to the body artist."

Blair nodded despite his impatience, recognising the non-negotiable tone. Ellison had no temporary collar, and the Dark Sentinel wanted his Guide branded as his _now_. Collecting their accoutrements, Jim unlocked the arboretum and they strolled out together, blithely cleaving a path through the small group who had been trying to get in and ignoring the murmurs in their wake.

The body artist's eyes widened as he took in the Body Heir tattoo of the very large, broad shouldered man who entered, comprehension dawning as he took in the smaller man plastered to his side. Lord Heir Ellison sketched the design he wanted, and the two colours – scarlet and gold – before settling his Guide into the chair. Body art was now totally painless, but the artist still took exquisite care as he began to work the design, starting at the base of the throat. Lord Heir Ellison was known to be a powerful Sentinel, and his senses would be very active with his Guide in such a vulnerable position, his throat exposed, an action that usually only occurred during bonding. The Sentinel also tended to be irrationally jealous that his or her Guide had bared their throat to someone else, even when that person was not a Sentinel and therefore no rival.

To his relief, however, this time the Guide showed some initiative. Some Guides had a dislike of needles, triggering off the Sentinel's Blessed Protector instinct. Others, especially captured wild empaths, appeared to wish they were anywhere else but where they were, triggering extreme possessiveness on the part of the Sentinel. Reaching out one hand, this Guide placed it in Lord Heir Ellison's much larger one; instead of sitting like a stuffed dummy, he kept his attention on his Sentinel, looking at him with a puppy-like tender adoration that, to the body artist's scrupulously hidden amusement, the big man openly basked in, puffing out his chest and preening. Catching the body artist's eye, one eyelid seemed lower slightly in what might have been a wink.

Finally the process was over and the artist's heart did a somersault of glee when Lord Heir Ellison dished out a tip that would cover the ground rent for this place for the next two years. Then the Guide paused. "Wait, what are those?"

Eagerly, the artist showed them the small, but exquisitely carved gold ornamental charms and rings he also sold. The Guide reached out and took an earring and a matching nipple ring both of which were carved in the shape of a wolf's head. Lord Heir Ellison promptly handed over enough galaks to pay the ground rent for another six months. Then his larger hands reached out and stilled the Guide's as the curly haired man made to remove his earring. Gently, the big man inserted the new earring, then, deliberately blocking the artist's view, he opened the Guide's shirt, removed the old ring and inserted the new gold one, giving it a playful tug and grinning when Blair blushed rosily. The anthropologist had been loudly vocal during bonding, never more so than when Jim had teased him by messing with the nipple ring. (_Hours of fun for the Sentinel_) Jim promised himself.

As they made their way to the Central Precinct, Blair ensured that he matched his stride to Jim's and kept himself as close to the Dark Sentinel as possible. The Sentinel was very jealous and possessive – well, more so than usual – in the first ten to fourteen days after First Bonding. Under normal circumstances during that fortnight, the newly bonded Sentinel and Guide would be sent somewhere picturesque, serenely quiet and uninhabited with appropriate shielding and white noise generators, so they could settle into the psychic link undisturbed. Sometimes, however, that simply was not possible to do, which tended to make the Sentinel's temper very uncertain. In this instance, Blair had no worries. The vast majority of the denizens of Halfway hadn't survived this long without being fairly bright. Passers by took one look at the tattoo identifying the big man as Firstborn & Body Heir Dark Sentinel Lord James Ellison, and one at the obviously fresh tattoo of a Bonded Dark Guide around the neck of the young man walking next to him, and prudently melted from the Sentinel's path like morning mist.

"Blair!"

Jim whirled at the sharp, tense cry, instantly ready to defend his Guide, but paused in surprise as Race Keegan and his Guide Gage Butler came towards them. A look of relief came over Blair's face and he moved forward and hugged Butler before releasing him and stepping back towards Jim, who bristled as Gage looked at him as if Jim had just admitted to being the local serial killer.

"Are you okay, B.?" Gage asked, trying to deny the tattoo his eyes insisted on seeing round Blair's throat.

"Yeah, G., I'm cool. This, uh, is Jim." Blair mumbled, desperately not wanting to admit to Gage that he, Blair, had deserted the man's best friend last night and that said best friend was now probably bonded to Saran Van den Mikhail, a man with all the emotional warmth of a polar ice cap.

"Dark Sentinel."

Jim bristled as Butler made the two words sound like some shameful venereal disease, Race shooting him an apologetic look.

"He's not like Alex Barnes." Blair's blunt stating of _that_ name brought all their attentions to him. Glowering at Gage, Blair said firmly, "Jim is…everything."

Gage relaxed. Even as he'd resented his unwilling bonding to Race, a part of him had gone mushy and tender whenever he thought of his Sentinel, a reaction Blair had just exhibited in front of him, one that he had NEVER shown regarding anything to do with Alexandra Barnes. Gage moved on to his most pressing concern, "Is Trey all right?"

Blair blanched and his heartbeat spiked. Jim realised that the young man was going to blame himself for abandoning Trey and quickly nipped the martyrdom in the bud. "A killer called Grokk caught them in the corridor –"

Race surged forward as Gage went white and his vital signs shot up.

"- but we got there in time." Jim finished. "Saran saved Trey from Grokk and took Trey."

Gage's expression changed midway from alarm to relief back to alarm again. "Saran? Saran Van den Mikhail? Bondless Sentinel Saran Van den Mikhail!"

This time both Jim and Race glared as Gage managed to make their friend sound like Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Josef Stalin rolled into one super-monster. "Saran's a little frosty, but he's okay!" Race protested, only for his Guide to look at him as if he'd just suggested that cannibalism was okay as long as you only ate the limbs and not the torso.

"Let's go to the precinct, Saran will be there." Jim assured the two empaths, who nodded eagerly, looks of worry still obvious on their faces.

Saran stood in the in the centre of the Homicide Division bullpen, sorting through files as he finished "shutting down" his temporary desk, ignoring the bleating sheep around him. Saran's icy politeness to the terrified Chief of Police, Station Manager and Station Governors had, far more than bellowing, displayed his displeasure of the gross under-funding of certain police departments, like Juvenile Crime and Child Protection, for no better reason than they didn't want to admit paedophilia existed on Halfway for fear of damaging the tourist trade. He had also pointed out in chill, precise detail how such under-funding endangered the lives of the police officers involved; the point that Saran Van den Mikhail's brand new Guide had been one of those endangered was not lost on anyone present. More than one flunkie was saying a grateful prayer that, by some miracle, Trey Logan had remained whole and not been one of those who had lost an eye, hand, or suffered other damage due to being denied money. _Then_ Saran had made polite conversation about politics, which nevertheless managed to convey his "disquiet" over the way that the Station Manager and his governor-council routinely interfered with arrests and court cases to favour wealthy and/or influential traders or tourists of a certain class or rank. Now they stood nearby, fawning and surreptitiously gibbering in panic as they realised their cushy number was about to be yanked away from them.

As he dropped another file onto the shredding pile – a thousand years of organised police forces, electronic books, tight-beams, intergalactic data-compressed emailing and STILL there seemed to be never ending mountains of paper, or nowadays, plastic flimsies, wherever you turned – Saran was always aware of exactly where his Guide was as Trey Logan sorted out his own caseload with his ex-colleagues. Most of the cops were staying well clear of Logan, but several had come up to check if he was okay. Saran was slightly disconcerted to realise that all of those were the "real" cops, not the time-servers, flunkies, pen-pushers and so forth.

Homicide Lieutenant Ryan, who did not know he was about to be the next Chief of Police, had whispered, "Sorry, kid," to Logan; Saran instinctively frowned at this attitude everyone seemed to have that Trey Logan had suffered A Fate Worse Than Death – what on Earth did these people think that the LEO Commissioner was going to do Logan? Part of his irritation, he knew, came from the pills. After his initial imprinting of Logan in the latter's apartment, Saran had gone back on the meds to ensure that he did not progress further than the initial stages of bonding heat and ordered Trey to do the same. He did not want to go into Full Bonding until they had been back on Federation at least a week and he'd had time to clear some of his backlog of work – he was well aware of the irascibility and irrationality of a newly bonded pair and the fact that they really needed to remain in seclusion for 7-14 days after First Bonding, during which time he would build yet another backlog of urgent work to clear.

Nevertheless, Saran acknowledged, despite his own dislike of being bonded, Logan was no wilting flower to crumple under the slightest pressure. In fact, the young detective was so far being the perfect Guide: silent, obedient, discreet, respectful; Saran had only to raise an eyebrow or furrow his brow and the young man seemed to know instinctively that he was required, appearing at Saran's elbow and waiting with quiet respect for Saran's order. Saran ruthlessly squashed the voice in his head that kept asking why the fact that Trey was a perfect Guide kept irritating him so much, or rather _unsettling_ the Great Saran Van den Mikhail.

Abruptly his Sentinel Radar went on alert and he raised his head. Before he could take a step, two powerful empaths, one of them Race Keegan's Guide, Gage Butler and the other the brown-haired youth who'd been with Trey when he and Jim found Grokk menacing them, came into the room and launched themselves at Trey who enthusiastically returned their embraces. Race Keegan and Jim Ellison appeared in the doorway a second later. Saran's eyes narrowed as he took in Jim Ellison, suddenly realising who the unknown, curly haired empath was. The Dark Guide. Well, well, well. He went over, in time to hear the two Guides anxiously asking if Trey was okay.

"Blair Sandburg is my Guide." Jim Ellison told him with unmistakeable delight.

Saran turned his gaze to Blair, only to be taken aback by the youth's glare. In fact, both of them were looking as if he'd just confessed to being the local serial killer; protectiveness towards Trey and dislike of him poured of the duo in waves, and Saran felt his possessive instinct kick in.

Trey smiled softly, inching closer to Saran. "I'm okay, guys, thanks for coming to see me."

Blair smiled, to match Trey's calming tone, though his expression was strained. "Did you get Grokk?"

"Yes, he's – not a problem anymore." Trey amended.

Gage and Blair reluctantly took their leave of their friend, since Gage and Race were returning to Hyperion and Jim and Blair to Earth and Cascade. "We'll talk to you soon, Trey." Blair's words were a promise to Trey and his glare a warning to Saran before they left.

Saran told Trey to go back to clearing up his work as he returned to his desk when the two other Sentinels and Guides had gone, feeling distinctly piqued. The way the two empaths had reacted to him grated on his self-perception, but what really niggled was the way Trey had been so transparently grateful that they had come to see if he was all right, the way his eyes had kept flicking towards Saran warily, as if he seriously thought Saran was going to yell or hit him for hugging them back and talking to them. Aware he was frowning again, Saran consciously relaxed his facial muscles. Yes, he wanted an obedient Guide who knew not to bother him too much, but he didn't want a doormat, or someone who cowered like a kicked puppy every time he went near them. Once back on Federation, he would have a serious talk with Logan.

To Jim's surprise, he and Blair got through the precinct building with no bother, nobody paying any attention to them as Jim's gold detective "shield" was prominently displayed. Eschewing the elevator, they walked into Major Crime, their passage towards Simon's office marked by a sudden spreading pool of absolute, deathly silence. It wasn't just the absence of noise, Jim realised, the silence was so intense that it actually hurt his ears. Simon Banks yanked open his office door, his face a mask of hatred that made Jim stiffen in battle-readiness at the sheer murderous intent in those eyes.

Blair stepped in. "Uh-uh, boys. Blood is hell on carpets. Let's go into your office, Simon." Ushering his Sentinel and his enraged friend inside, Blair turned and firmly shut the door in the faces of his other friends, who had gathered in a circle outside like a wolf-pack, ready to savage Ellison at Simon, or Blair's, command.

Simon was breathing harshly, literally incapable of speech due to his rage and outrage that Ellison had dared show his face within ten miles of Cascade ever again. Blair, however, was having none of it. "That's enough, Simon. Stop feeling guilty because you couldn't protect me."

Simon's lips tightened as the barb went home. "Dark Sentinel –"

Blair slapped his hand down on Simon's desk, making both of them flinch. "James Ellison is so far removed from Alexandra Barnes that they are not even in the same galaxy." He glared at Simon, silently reinforcing his point. "I vowed that I would never submit again to anyone who tried to do what Alex did, Simon, and I am more than capable of fulfilling that – if Jim had even _thought_ about it, I would have disembowelled him on the spot. Alex was nothing; James Ellison is my Sentinel – he belongs to me as much as I belong to him."

For an instant the battle of wills raged, but finally Simon sighed – few, if any, could stand against the will of a Dark Guide. It was what made them so dangerous. "So now that you have your Dark Guide, Ellison, why have you come back?" He snarled.

"To be a detective in the Major Crime Unit."

The fresh cigar that Banks had placed in his mouth fell unheeded on his desk top as his teeth bit reflexively through it. "What?" He whispered.

Jim repeated his statement. As Simon seemed to swell up, Jim slipped his hand in his pocket and tossed a small badge onto the Captain's desk, whose explosion of vituperation was halted dead as he focussed on it – two black angel's wings under a crooked halo and over a crossed gun and laurel leaf. "I'm a Dark Angel." Jim said casually. "Information that will never leave this room, if you want to live. I realised during my search for Blair that being a Homicide Detective in the Cascade PD is the ideal "public life". I also found that I _like_ being a detective. I feel – good- knowing I've helped people stay safe."

"It's for real, Simon." Blair assured his friend, earnestly.

"Aaaggh!" Moaned Simon.

Needless to say, Major Crime accepted – or rather didn't – the new situation spectacularly badly. As he and Blair walked the gamut of glaring faces, deciding to go to Jim's apartment and let Simon "handle" the Major Crime personnel, Jim seriously considered coming into work wearing his Spider Silk protective gear. Upon arriving at apartment 307, 852 Prospect Avenue, Jim scandalised Blair by ruthlessly displacing his cousin Rainworth Ellison. Rainworth was the younger brother of snotty Stanley, son of William's brother George and his super-snob wife Alysoun. However, since the property had actually been passed to Jim by his maternal grandmother, Matriarch Kristijana Akureyri and did not belong to High House Ellison at all, there was very little argument to be made. However, Rainworth was as friendly and down to earth as his brother and mother were sneering and supercilious, and moved himself out with rapidity and equanimity, heading, Jim realised sourly as the young man waved cheerily at them through the back window of the taxi-skiff, straight to the planet of Federation and the keen ear of William Ellison, to tell any family member who'd listen that Jimmy finally had his Dark Guide.

Week One was a lesson in stress. The only thing that kept Jim on an even keel was that Blair allowed him to bond with the young anthropologist nightly, as all Jim's insecurities and fears were activated by the hostility sloshing around them. However, day by day the silent tension lessoned as Major Crime began to see that Jim's protectiveness and fussing over Blair was a genuine thing, not some attempt to impress/appease them. Joel Taggart, who was Captain of the Bomb Squad but who had his desk in the bullpen with the rank and file rather than his own private office, was a huge, black bear of a man under whose massive chest beat a heart of pure, clarified gold, and he earned Jim's undying gratitude for first extending the hand of friendship once he was satisfied that Jim was no threat to Blair. Others followed suit.

Their ire dwindled even further when Jim accompanied Blair back to Rainier University, and basically menaced the faculty and students into accepting Blair's return. Both at the precinct and university, those full of spiteful slander, wicked words and catty comments about the Dark Guide's sexual history and murder of the female Dark Sentinel found that their "witticisms" withered unsaid on their lips when they came face to face with the pitiless laser glare of the Dark Sentinel, son of High House Ellison.

Simon Banks found that his self-appointed task to ensure the whole of the ancient city of Cascade was inhabitable by decent people had suddenly become a lot easier. Ellison and Sandburg patrolled the streets as literal Dark Avengers, the bad, dangerous to know and even the mad beginning to seek new, less well-guarded pastures.

"_WHERE IS HE!"_ Opening the door at the furious pounding on it, Jim took a step back as his half-brother lunged into the apartment, the Internal Affairs Captain the personification of Homicidal Maniac. For an instant, Jim stood in bemusement as Hunter ranted and raved, then Dark Sentinel instincts cut in – a Bondless Sentinel was strutting around in his territory threatening bodily harm, albeit implausibly, to the Dark Guide. He snarled low in his throat.

"Jim?" The single word brought both Sentinels' attention to Blair as he strolled out of the bedroom he had below Jim's, closing the French windows that were his doors behind him. As usual due to the fact that he felt the cold, Blair was dressed in faded jeans and several layers of brightly coloured shirts, looking like a 20th Century flower-child. Somehow, he exuded an authority that had the Dark Sentinel quietening. "Hunter?"

Hunter was a Sentinel, and that part of him revered the Dark Guide, but he was also Ellison Vincent Hunter, and that part of him was furious. He waved the offending plastic flimsy at Blair. "What the hell is this acceptance to William Ellison's birthday party: "Thank-you for your prompt RSVP, one of Patriarch Ellison's personal staff skiffs has been assigned to collect Messrs James Joseph Ellison, Ellison Vincent Hunter and Blair Jacob Sandburg from Federation's Nagaraki Spaceport on the 29th!"

"What!" Now Jim was glaring at his Guide as he plucked the offending sheet from his half-brother's hand and read it. "What did you do, Sandburg?"

Blair looked from one to the other in confusion. "I made us reservations to go to your dad's birthday party. Some guy named Wilson Parker –"

"My dad's Advocate." Jim growled to Hunter; as Personal Assistant, Private Secretary, Major-Domo, second-in-command, household manager and steward, all rolled into one, the Advocate of a High House was second only in power to the Patriarch or Matriarch him or herself, and held power and rank equal to that of the Body Heir or Heiress.

"Yeah, anyway, he came through to your desk, Jim, on your out-of-galaxy _private _comm. I mean, those things cost a fortune to talk on for two seconds!" Blair said in awe. "He reeled off this invite to the both of you, I said yes, he asked who I was, I told him, he made the travel arrangements in about ten seconds." Again, Blair looked awed at someone with that sort of clout, since to make spur of the moment travel arrangements on inter-galactic liners was something that required about a large planet's worth of gold.

"I'm not going anywhere near that man!" Hunter snapped angrily.

"What's wrong with your dad's birthday party?" Blair looked confused.

"Stop calling him my dad!" Hunter's ire began to rise again.

Blair looked from one irate face to the other, and slowly a look of hurt spread across his face. "I thought you'd like going to your dad's birthday party." He swallowed and whispered, "I've never had a dad."

There was a long silence. The slender, woebegone, big-eyed figure gazed at them with the baffled hurt look of a puppy that had been kicked for no reason. Finally Blair looked at the floor and flushed with embarrassment, giving both men a plastic, brave smile. "Sorry guys. I didn't realise, I mean, all your family will be there and me being the Dark Guide and…what with the media telling everyone what Alex did to me…I'll cancel, first thing tomorrow, I promise –"

The flimsy fluttered to the floor as Jim surged forward and gave his Guide a firm shake. "That's enough, Sandburg! Get it through your head that I don't care about what Alex did or did not do! You are my Guide now and anyone that sneers at you is going to end up a smear on the wall! I'm proud of you Chief, and if spending the night stuffed in a tux at William Ellison's interminable "birthday bash" is what it takes to prove it, then that is what we are going to do. Right, Hunter?"

That last was said in a nearly _sotto voce_ growl. Hunter, recognising the snarl of a Dark Sentinel heading towards Blessed Protector aggression, knew he was facing Hobson's choice, and promptly agreed, rewarded by Blair's brilliant, grateful smile. The Dark Sentinel rumbled as that happy adoration was, however temporarily, focussed on someone other than him, a Bondless Sentinel to boot. Not slow on the uptake, Hunter exited gracefully and headed down the stairs, finding himself both apprehensive and anticipatory as he imagined the reactions at the High House of Ellison when William's bastard firstborn son strolled into the proceedings.

Jim Ellison growled and tightened his grip on his Guide; one big hand pushed up the layers of shirts and tugged sharply at the gold wolf's head nipple ring that was the fastest way to get his Guide's undivided attention. Blair rubbed his face against the big man's throat, knowing he was about to be thoroughly claimed. Jim was nervous and apprehensive about attending his estranged father's gathering, therefore Jim was primal and in full "Me Dark Sentinel, me in charge" mode.

True to Jim's imaginings, the gold ring had provided much pleasure to the Sentinel. Even if he were so inclined, Blair couldn't concentrate on Jim's manipulation of the nipple ring and keep his mental barriers up, which allowed the psychic link between them to surge and arc brilliantly for as long as the Dark Sentinel wished. Soon his Guide was stripped and pinned; the Dark Sentinel claimed him millimetre by millimetre, branding him completely; the powerful psychic energy cascaded around them in a riot of brightly hued sparkles, Jim roaring triumphantly as Blair screamed his name from the backlash of pure psychic power: " JIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMM!"

They lay, gasping with the aftershocks, when the roaring in Jim's ears finally subsided enough for him to realise that his very private comlink, the Dark Angels direct line, was _pinging_ softly. Reluctantly uncoiling himself from his dazed Dark Guide, Jim stood up and somewhat shakily answered, keeping it to audio only; his superior did not need to see James Joseph Ellison in the altogether, at least not without a therapist on hand.

Blair sat up, equally shaky. He had known Bonding between Dark Guide and Dark Sentinel was wildly intense in the same way that someone who had never been off-planet knew that there were other inhabited worlds. But, just like a first time traveller off-world, the reality had been mind-blowing; now Blair shook his head as he recalled the pathetic imitation Alex had tried to force upon him. His whole _brain_ was still tingling!

"Hit the shower, Chief." Jim's face was grim.

"What is it?" Blair asked, concerned.

"We've got to go back to Halfway. A Dark Angel has heard that there's someone there trying to lay a hit on me and Saran."

Blair jumped up. "That's crazy!"

The idea was ludicrous. To kill a Body Heir or the LEO Commissioner was tantamount to suicide because the perpetrator would be hunted down relentlessly and mercilessly killed on sight, regardless of cost or time involved. Such ruthless revenge, repeated for as long as necessary, was how the Oligarchy Nine Ruling Houses had made their elected officials essentially untouchable, successfully determined to avoid the political weakness and social chaos of past centuries, when criminals, terrorists and powerful business interests had used assassination, murder and the threat thereof to manipulate and emasculate the systems that were supposed to protect decent people from their depredations.

"I have no doubt." Jim agreed.

**Chapter VIII – A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing**

_**Planet Hyperion, Rion City Spaceport…**_

Oligarchy Senator Everard Henson swallowed heavily with weary relief as the ship made its ascent from Rion's spaceport. This whole trip had been a disaster. He shuddered as he thought of the damage control he was going to have to do to keep his own career from going down the toilet or stalling and cast an evil eye on his companions, some of whom, unaware of the deep _kimchee_ they were in, were starting fluff up their feathers and bluster again, vain peacocks too foolish to understand that their pricked pride was the very least of their worries.

For those right-wing groups of the "inferior aliens who died out" mind-set as opposed to the "superior aliens who were advanced enough to leave the galaxy altogether" ideology, the archaeological dig on Hyperion was a major thorn in their side. Dr Gage Butler was too famous, and well-respected, to deride easily, especially as he had so spectacularly proven more "eminent" colleagues wrong about Hyperion being an alien world in the first place. Added to that, Butler's ability to make the least shard of clay pot sound fascinating to the layman meant that his findings tended to be more readily reported in the mass tabloid/sensationalist media as well as the more restrained, dignified "broadsheets". The discovery of more alien installations, large but not cities, on Hyperion, had led to large headlines in every form of media in the Inhabited Galaxies along with the prominently leaked news that Dr Butler was of the opinion that Hyperion was the "central world" of government of the alien culture in the same way that Federation was the centre of government of human culture.

Humanists, Humanity First, The Anti-Psi True Human Foundation, Citizens Morality League, and many other right-wing organisations had protested these conclusions with little effect as there was no way to control the digs or censure Butler, or so they thought. Then the "tabloid" media had hysterically reported the great breakthrough, that the "aliens were telepathic". Dr Butler had taken so-called humans, those mutants with "psi" abilities, into the alien temple. Crystal-based alien technology incorporated in the walls had re-activated and responded to them, and they had been able to even grasp parts of the hitherto indecipherable pictographs – enough to reveal that the symbols were not a language or written words, but were rather depicting _concepts_ and _ideas. _ Vague, amorphous shapes had also coalesced around the psychics, sending them into ecstatic states, as they claimed that the aliens had somehow managed to leave part of their "racial – or species - consciousness" _behind_, to make contact with any that were advanced enough to find their relics.

At the end of one particularly lurid tabloid report, the writer included the fact that Dr Butler had gotten the idea of the aliens' possible telepathy after the amorphous "alien consciousness" representatives had appeared when his Sentinel bonded with him on the "altar" in the main temple room.

That appeared to be the wedge, and certain parties seized on it. Empaths were widely regarded as emotionally unstable and neurotically inclined. Portraying Butler as Bonded Guide and therefore second-class citizen as opposed to professor Dr Butler meant the inconvenient archaeologist could be shunted aside and someone more appropriate put in his place.

There would be no half-measures with the plan, either. The Government of humanity was divided into two – Parliament and the Senate. The Oligarchy Mandarins began with Minor Grade Mandarin, then Junior Grade, Senior Grade and Primary Grade (equal in rank to an Oligarchy Associate House), the next level of rank being Senator (equal to Chief Justices) and then Oligarchy Speaker, a heady height of power that was equal in rank to planetary Monarchs, Ambassadors, Governors, Oligarchy Lesser Houses and Royalty Minors. Above that were solar system or galaxy rulers, Royalty Major and the Oligarchy's ruling Nine High Houses. Equal to the Nine were the Vice-President, the LEO Commissioner and the IFP Lord or Dame Supreme Chief Justice. Finally, the President of the IFP sat in spot lighted splendour, above and beyond.

Everyone up to and including Primary Grade Mandarins and Margrave/Margravine of Associate Houses (only Lesser and High House heads were allowed the title of Patriarch or Matriarch) resided in the lower Parliament, along with such lesser beings as space station managers, and governor-councils, mayors, commissioners, councillors, ministers, unions, trader representatives and so forth. In the Senate were the lowest rank, the Senators, up to the President him or herself, who resided in the glorious Star Chamber, an office, unlike the Presidential Palace, never seen and mysterious.

The right-wing coalition had eschewed Parliament and gone for Senators, Speakers, Chief Justices, members of Associate, Lesser and High Houses. Able to drop enough impressive names to bully Butler into knowing his place and ceding his current one, the delegation, headed by a younger son of an Associate House and with Everard as spokesman, had set off for Hyperion in high style.

But, reflected Everard bitterly, as the desert world dwindled to nothing through the viewport, their fondly imagined scenarios had been shattered from the instant they arrived. Nobody on the dig down to the least college student seemed to have the proper fear of their ability to damage careers and cut off grants. Everard winced as he realised the catalogue of errors that had led to this humiliation. Blinded by their own hubris, the coalition had not bothered to even discover the _identity_ of the Sentinel who had claimed Gage Butler, imagining it to be some beefy but not too bright jock type who could be snowed by big words and big money into scuppering his Guide's career - Sentinels tended to be easily provoked to jealousy where they thought that someone or something else was threatening to replace them in their Guide's affection. Everard had airily been instructed to manipulate the goon into seeing Gage's archaeological career as a threat to the bond.

Gage Butler had watched their mincing approach with overt derision. Again, the phrase "desert world" hadn't really been taken in, Everard acknowledged, and the delegation found themselves having to skip in ungainly hops across hot, rock-strewn sand with their feet clad in the elegant, delicate, cutting-edge-of-fashion thin silk slippers that were utterly useless away from the priceless, antique tiled or wooden parquetry or plush carpeted floors of the corridors of power.

Everard's intended speech mixing carrot and stick would never be said as Butler's Sentinel loomed into view, proving to be none other than the extraordinarily wealthy playboy, Race Rainworth Keegan. Scion of Lesser House Keegan, true, but the favourite nephew of Matriarch Kristijana Akureyri of High House Akureyri.

Keegan had reacted with softly spoken but chilling menace when those of Everard's companions too stupid to realise the danger began to bluster, making insinuations about Butler's mental stability because of his empathy and coming perilously close to slander with carefully worded aspersions on his reputation and ability as an archaeologist. Everard had seen the fury in Butler's eyes and could almost see Keegan coiling tighter and tighter with deadly intent, like a teased Black Mamba about to strike as he fed off his Guide's fury. The cold but non-violent way they had been dismissed from the main dig site had not reassured Everard at all, even as the other delegates swaggered and swelled like cockerels. His astute mind was already connecting the dots.

True to his fears, the very next morning the delegation was hastily recalled to Federation by the suddenly ex-coalition chiefs, each of whom were sweating and seeking to divert attention from their "interest group" onto the others. Race Keegan was a close friend of his cousin, James Ellison, the estranged but still Firstborn & Body Heir of Patriarch William Ellison, and a grandson of Matriarch Kristijana Akureyri. Ellison in turn was on first name terms with the newly bonded LEO Commissioner Sentinel Saran Van den Mikhail, for whom he had somehow, according to gossip, procured the Commissioner's Guide, Trey Logan. Mikhail was the favourite son of the Vicereine of Olban, nephew and, incredibly, Body Heir of the Matriarch Madhuri of High House Syal, over her own offspring, a position not seen in a High House for four hundred and twenty years, since Patriarch Sachaverel Stantley made his sister Hypatia Body Heir over his three children. Keegan had made irate comm calls and now powerful eyes were focussed disapprovingly on the right-wing groups. Everard took a deep breath and decided to keep a low profile. Many of his companions were too full of arrogance to realise what they were up against and would trot like fattened pigs into the jaws of Keegan's friends. Everard was a pragmatist, and had no intention of trying to fight two Matriarchs, a Patriarch and Vicereine. That way lay oblivion.

Race cut off his very private, very secure comlink and winced as he stood up and began to walk slowly to his and Gage's luxurious tent. Normally on a permanent dig, solid cabins would have been erected, but the discovery of more installations made such construction unwise, since, as Gage pointed out, they might find that they had built right over the top of yet more structures. Even from here, on the other side of the camp, Race could feel Gage's lingering rage, like a salty aftertaste in his mouth, well aware that he was indirectly responsible for that sorry-assed delegation of racist bullies who were now wending their way off world. It was just that he had been so proud of Gage's discoveries, it didn't seem important not to tell the journalists _how_ Gage had made the telepathy connection in the first place. As he dragged his feet towards his Guide's location like an errant child heading home to a dinner of cabbage, Race recalled the momentous events….

A week after they left Halfway and were back on Hyperion, Race still found himself slightly on edge, until he realised he was reflecting Gage's tension. When they had bonded aboard the liner en route back to the desert world, Race had felt how close friends Gage was with Trey Logan, and his deeply held fears regarding the ex-cop's bond with Saran, who was Race's friend. Whenever Race broached the subject, Gage brushed it off, but Race knew he was tight-beaming Logan at least once a day, which surely wasn't going down well with Saran, who, Race had to admit, gave whole new shades of meaning to the phrase "workaholic".

So, when Sadie Robb, a student from the ancient University of Oxford, England, and her friend Bethan Reva from Princeton, both on the dig as they worked for their degrees, quite literally stumbled over the next alien ruins, Race was highly relieved. True to his hopes, Gage became wrapped up in the find as it became clear that the large "installation" was not meant to be lived in, unlike the huge city with the temple. Other installations also came to light with the new deep underground scanners that Race had bought as a surprise present for Gage, and it was another student who mentioned that the ruins did resemble human ground-control stations for orbital vehicles, like satellites and so forth. Frenzied excitement had ensued, since nobody had any proof that the aliens had any ability for inter-stellar travel, or any extra-terrestrial activity, other than the fact that identical ruins had been found on dozens of worlds.

Soon, however, Gage had let the rest of the by now large archaeological team get on with it while he returned to his favourite occupation of excavating the temple in the city. Race had to admit he was happiest when Gage was there too. Entering the temple, Race always found that the colossal stone walls cut down on aggravating noise and seemed to produce a hushed serenity that soothed frayed Sentinel senses. His abilities and the dig's own safety equipment also reassured that the temple was safely solid, unlike some of the more outlying sites they'd found, which were precarious to say the least.

The revelatory bond had started out as horseplay. Race had learned within days of first claiming Gage that the younger man became so wrapped up in his beloved archaeology that time ceased to have any meaning. If left to himself, Gage would start some task and then ignore things like food and sleep. However, Race found that spirit animal guides again came in handy. Every so often, his leopard would appear, carrying the protesting jaguar-spotted margay in its mouth like a naughty kitten. The leopard would lower the small cat to the floor, pin it with one paw, then lave it with it's tongue as the smaller golden feline's squawks of complaint changed to purrs of delight. The message: take care of your Guide, was clearly understandable.

Going down into the temple, Race found Gage right where he'd expected, in the "altar" chamber, carefully cleaning the pictographs and symbols, his nose pressed to the marble work, utterly oblivious to his surroundings as he mumbled half-finished phrases to himself. Even before he'd been Bonded as Race's Guide, Gage had habitually showered and shaved daily, but Race's Sentinel senses easily detected the sensitive synapses from too little sleep and the empty belly and low electrolytes from skipping dinner and breakfast. Firmly taking Gage by the scruff of his shirt, he lifted the startled man upright, ignoring his protesting yelp that momentarily sounded so much like the indignant margay that Race grinned.

"Eat this, now." Race placed the plate with the freshly baked baguette, crammed with chicken, bacon and mayo, firmly in Gage's hands.

Rolling his eyes as Race stood in front of him with his arms folded in a no-nonsense manner, Gage perched himself against the flat-topped marble "altar" and insouciantly devoured the sandwich, chewing every bite well like a good little boy and wrinkling his nose at his Sentinel's stern expression. When the last crumb had been picked up by thumb and forefinger and placed in his mouth, the plate was pulled away and a cold can of iced tea thrust into his hand. Slowly, Gage chugged the refreshing liquid, then belched loudly as Race's reflexes sent the can lazily spinning to land upright on the plate the Sentinel had placed on the floor.

"Good Sentinel." He patronised teasingly.

Race snorted and crowded in, swiping at his head with one hand while the other took advantage of the diversion to start tickling uppity Guide ribs.

"Heeeyyy!"

Giggling like six year olds sneaking a live frog onto teacher's desk, they pushed and pulled at each other; eventually Gage backed up against the altar and went over backwards as Race kept trying to tickle him, batting away the hands. Race followed him, pinning him and nuzzling his throat; keen ears told him that no other humans were within a mile of their position, and no Sentinel turned down the opportunity of claiming his or her Guide. For a few minutes they batted at each other, pinching and tweaking, before Gage wiggled into a more comfy position so that they were nestled on their sides facing each other, despite there being little room. He grinned wryly, aware that in a room full of pristine, expansive marble, two fully-grown men were huddled together on the smallest surface in the place.

Race ran his hand up and down Gage's arm from shoulder to wrist, the other stroking Gage's hair – most Guides tended to have longer than average hair, since all Sentinels seemed to have the commonly favourite hobby of playing with it. Gage sighed and relaxed, leaning back slightly and laying his head back so Race could get at his throat, and instantly his Sentinel began to nuzzle him. They sank into the bond, the psychic energy lazily arcing between them as their hands moved languidly, tracing patterns over each other's bodies, mumbling odd endearments. Suddenly the Sentinel raised his head and snarled warning at the vague, gossamer thin coloured shapes that seemed to coalesce around them. Aggressively he pinned his Guide down and cast his head balefully left and right, rumbling angrily as the floating energy obediently drew back.

"Mine!" Race bit Gage's throat, worrying the skin until he knew he had marked his Guide. The rational man disappeared, replaced by a pure, undiluted and instinct-driven Sentinel determined to demonstrate his possession to the subtly encroaching shapes. He tugged sharply and impatiently at his Guide's clothing, ignoring the empath's startled attempts to soothe him as instinct replaced reason. The Guide was his, no one else's, and he would submit, now!

Gage gasped as his now naked body was pressed back against the cold marble, trying to calm Race's tumultuous thoughts and his sudden aggression, aware the instant that the man faded and was replaced by the primal Sentinel. Race buried his face in Gage's neck as the Guide stilled, knowing the instinct driven Sentinel needed submission. Gradually the shapes floating above them became solid enough for Gage's normal eyes to see, and he gasped anew as he realised over a dozen hovered over the bonding pair, but the realisation was vague as the primitive emotions of the Sentinel called to the primordial empath, and Gage felt reason slip away.

Sentinel and Guide met and fused on the psychic plane, orange and green twining around each other tighter and tighter, dimly hearing the triumphant screams of their spirit guides. Locked into the intense bond, oblivious to anything but the driving need to mutually claim and be claimed, first Race then Gage did not even notice as, like a diaphanous jelly-fish, one translucent form then another drifted down to envelope the head of each man. Race howled as undiluted psychic power poured along the link between Sentinel and Guide only to be met and fed by that coming the other way. Fleeting, barely formed images flashed in front of his mind's eye as the energy arced up, crackling and sparking, a whirling kaleidoscope of colour and white-hot sound that wrapped both of them in a cocoon of pulsing electric sensation. Race screamed, a long-drawn out shriek of triumph, as the pulsating energy allowed him to see and feel into the centre of every nucleus of every cell in his Guide's being. Gage's answering howl of ecstasy sounded a moment later, and it was as if both men had dissolved into each other, merged into one being, one soul. Race's eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped, his vision greying as he lay on the cusp of blacking out. The feather-light touch around his head disappeared, and once again the room was utterly empty, bar two nude men sprawled floppily on top of the altar, lying limply like discarded dishrags.

Finally, feeling as if his body was made of lead, Gage managed to roll to one side and slithered off the altar to lie panting on the now blessedly cool marble floor. His heart still drummed in his chest as he dragged air in and out of his lungs; his hair was plastered to his head and his entire body was soaked in sweat, heat still pouring off him. Race, in exactly the same condition, managed to lever himself into a sitting position and both men simply remained silently until the cool air chilled the rivulets of perspiration on their bodies that made it appear as if large buckets of water had been thrown over them.

"What…ah-ah…the hell…ah-ah…was that?" Race panted.

Gage's eyes widened and from his supine position he pointed one wobbly arm at a group of three symbols, predominantly displayed halfway up one wall. "Nuunnh…"

"Whaa…?" Race swallowed as he tried to make his mouth work properly.

Reaching up a hand to grip the edge of the marble top and using the altar block to lever himself upright, Gage took a moment to centre himself then shuffled around, carefully redressing himself in the clothing that had been ruthlessly discarded, ignoring the twinges of the marks and scratches inflicted by Race, whose own body bore similar damage to his Guide's from their bonding frenzy. Pointing again at the wall, he enunciated clearly to the stunned Sentinel, "I understand what the symbols mean. I saw it when they wrapped around our heads. They _want_ us to understand!"

"Race, Race! Stay with me!"

Keegan came back to himself to find he was in their tent with Gage peering anxiously up at his face and shaking his arm lightly. "I'm okay, Gage."

The Guide stepped back, relaxing once he was assured that Race wasn't zoning. Their powerful bonding had obviously activated something, for when they'd emerged from the temple, they had found people converging from all over with tales of power spikes on every recording device they had. Gage's declaration that the aliens were at least empathic – possibly/probably telepathic - and appeared to have left some sort of psychic messengers behind had been what caused the media hysteria to erupt. All sorts of people began to try and get a look in at the dig, but Race, determined nobody was going to steal Gage's glory, had incautiously let the archaeologist's not-widely known Bonded Guide status slip out in the presence of journalists.

"Have they gone?" Demanded Gage caustically.

"Yes." Race answered, twitching in response to the irritation that still thrummed through his Guide. Taking a breath, he sent out soothing vibes, "Gage…"

"You said they wouldn't be a problem." Gage glared at him, in no mood to be calmed down. The blatant prejudice displayed by the delegation had made him furious.

Race snorted. "Gage, trust me, they are all going to find the universe a very uncomfortable place from now on." Trying again, he went on, "Gage, look…"

Gage's eyes widened as he twigged to Race's intended words. "NO WAY! Race, we can't leave now!" He began to pace, waving his arms about angrily. "We're in the middle of the biggest breakthrough we've had. The aliens left behind part of their consciousness and we can TALK to it-"

"It's murder."

Gage paused mid-rant. Anger, stubbornness, mulish resistance and finally resignation flitted across his face. Race was not in the slightest surprised. For all his love of his career and the "find of a lifetime", Gage knew that human life was always of more value than even the most bejewelled trinket. "What?"

"We have to go to Halfway Station. Someone there is trying to hire an assassin to kill Jim and Saran."

Gage laughed incredulously and shook his head. "Race, Jim's a Body Heir and Saran is the LEO Commissioner. They're untouchable! To try to put a hit out on either of them, never mind both, would be totally insane!"

"That's exactly the point, Gage." Race replied. "Obviously whoever is attempting this assassination is _way_ too far gone for rationality to have any hope of prevailing! We need to find him/her/it or them and neutralise them before their insanity expands their horizons for them – like a plasma bomb in Halfway's Central Shopping Mall on Sale Friday?"

One thing about having a Guide who was an archaeologist was that the man knew how to pack and when not to waste time. Even as Race finished speaking, Gage was methodically yet speedily packing the essentials into his holdall, his mouth a thin line. Blair and Trey were now Bonded to Jim and Saran. The bond of Sentinel and Guide was for life. If the two Sentinels were killed, his friends would die…

The LEO Commissioner's personal air-skiff met Saran and Trey at the spaceport, gliding away smoothly and silently above the cityscape. Trey had never been to Federation, homeworld of the Intergalactic Federation of Planets, that glittering orb of colossal ziggurats, palaces, embassies, government buildings, luxurious hotels, unimaginable wealth and power, and he was glad it was night, so he did not embarrass Saran by gawking like some gauche hick.

The skiff touched down outside the private entrance to the LEO Commissioner's Palace, shielded from prying eyes in a secluded, walled garden of fountains and heady-scented flowers. The large door opened, throwing a rectangle of light towards them, and a tall man of Indian origin, wearing a turban and dressed in the most shiningly white clothing Trey had ever seen, inclined his head slightly. "Good evening, Sir."

"Hello, Singh." Saran nodded. "Trey Logan is my Guide. He will need entering onto all access codes, security monitors –"

Singh inclined his head again. "I took the liberty of making the necessary adjustments the day after yourself and Mr Logan bonded, Sir. I have prepared Mr Logan's suite, next to yours."

"You're a jewel, Singh." Saran said gratefully. The Vicereine had screamed like a fishwife when she discovered her son had "appropriated" her most valued employee.

With Singh slightly in the lead on the far left and Trey carefully walking a half-step behind his Sentinel on the far right, the three men walked across porphyry floors, between towering marble columns supporting a vast vaulted roof covered in brilliantly hued murals edged with scrollwork covered in beaten gold. Massive tapestries and oil paintings adorned walls, priceless antique couches and ornamental tables inset with lapis lazuli and jewels were everywhere, huge dragons of gold and jade from ancient Oriental dynasties stood guard at the foot of wide, sweeping staircases.

Entering his sumptuous personal suite of rooms, Saran nodded towards where a connecting door of solid, antique English oak, alone worth more than 5,000 galaks, separated his suite from Trey's. "We leave for my office at 0700 hours sharp. The computer will give you a wake-up call at six. Get some rest."

Nodding his head obediently, Trey silently walked through the connecting door and closed it carefully behind him, wishing he had the courage to turn the huge, black iron key and lock it. He walked through the opulent lounge to the bedchamber. An exquisite parquetry floor of rare wood peeked out from under huge, intricately woven rugs. A huge canopied bed took centre stage, swathed in real damask with genuine sun silk sheets, a fabric so delicate it lost its colour after two minute's exposure to direct sunlight. A large closet and two chests of drawers, all obviously antique, were along the wall, along with a huge bevelled mirror that had to be at least 800 years old. A partially open door led into the bathroom.

Trey sat the edge of the bed, which was pleasantly firm and sank only very slightly under his weight. Carefully he laid his hand on the bedspread and stroked the silk softly, concentrating on keeping his respiration and vital signs "calm". For all that van den Mikhail had insisted they both go back on the suppressant meds, Trey had no doubt the Sentinel was monitoring him from his suite next door. Collapsing into a blubbering heap would have Saran leaping through the door in full BP mode and Trey knew that: "You're my worst nightmare," as an explanation would _not_ be well received. The slight glimmer of hope in the whole mess was Saran's insistence on going back on the meds and the fact that he was obviously accustomed to working long days – i.e., a workaholic. Grandfather had worked eighteen hours a day six days a week, even when he became rich enough to sit in his office doing nothing. Trey hastily shut off the painful memories of his relative, but the point was, if Saran followed a similar pattern, it would be weeks, months, maybe even a year or more, before Saran "got around" to initiating Full Bonding, something he obviously considered a low priority. Trey could more than happily live with that scenario.

Rising, he entered the bathroom, ignoring the sybaritic opulence of a place that looked as if it had been designed specifically to host a water-sports themed orgy, and quickly performed his evening ablutions. He looked at his own face in the mirror after he'd finished cleaning his teeth, the sadness sweeping over him again. Turning away from those hopeless eyes, he returned to the bedroom. Climbing into the bed, he felt something dig into his hip and pulled the object out of his pocket. It was small and glinted gold – his detective's shield, which he had been unable to bring himself to discard. Getting out again he carefully slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket, before climbing back into bed and making a mental note to wrap it in some nondescript cloth and secret it somewhere Saran would not bother to search. He had loved being a detective, even in Juvie, regardless of the often traumatic work. Even saving one child from a living hell was worth the anguish and nightmares. His time as a cop had been the one time in his entire life when he had been truly happy. He blinked furiously as the room suddenly blurred. He'd lost that now. Blowing out a breath, Trey resolutely closed his eyes, lecturing himself on focussing on the positive. He had his memories of the job – the successes, the good times, that he could recall – and he also had Blair and Gage, genuine friends, neither of whom would desert him.

Feeling his facial muscles all scrunch up, Saran consciously relaxed them as he realised that he always seemed to be frowning around Trey. As usual, he'd woken a few minutes before the wake-up call, and after performing his morning ablutions, his extended senses had registered no change in the vital signs of the man next door, meaning Trey had slept through the computer call. Upon entering the adjoining suite, Saran had initially thought that somehow his Guide had managed to leave unnoticed. Then he spotted him. Curled up in a hunched almost-but-not-quite foetal position, Trey lay on the very edge of a bed big enough to sleep six large elephants, still wearing his trousers and with his other clothing and shoes in arm's reach while he was initially hidden from view by dint of being buried under a disguising mound of covers. Saran's Sentinel sight saw with ease the tight lines around Logan's eyes and mouth that existed even in slumber, and his Guide was the classic portrait of someone taking measures to hide whilst still being able to run away pretty speedily. Feeling his forehead muscles start to draw in again, Saran fought down his irritation. Being considered "cold" and "unapproachable" had never bothered him – indeed, it was an asset that weeded out time-wasters and unimportant distracters – but Saran suddenly realised that he was rapidly becoming sick to death of Trey Logan looking at him as if he'd just ordered a light snack of babies and small children. Not even his worst enemies – and he had some very bad enemies – could accuse him of being even remotely a sadistic monster, so where did his own Guide come off treating him as if he were about as safe to be around as Attila the Hun with a headache?

"Logan…"

Under any other circumstances, the way Trey went from a softly snoring ball to vertically standing to attention in a manner to make a drill-sergeant smile would have been comical, especially in view of him rapidly blinking and darting quick, sidelong glances around the room in a clear: "Where am I and how the hell did I get here?" mental question. Saran was not amused; even confused out of his mind, Logan _still_ looked like he expected to be dragged outside and shot any second.

Resisting the urge to say, "At ease," Saran explained coolly, "You slept through the wake-up call. Breakfast will be downstairs in ten minutes…okay?"

His eyes clearing, Trey nodded. "Yes."

Saran left the room and made his way downstairs, hearing the shower start as he went into the morning solar and took his seat, nodding to Martin to pour two cups of coffee and serve him his fruit. He picked up a couple of flimsies but found himself considering whether to initiate Full Bonding now. Maybe it would calm his distinctly skittish Guide down? Trey didn't cower or cringe or whine, but nevertheless he was obviously very nervous and unsettled…

Not one to worry or whittle, Saran came down on the side of his initial decision. If Trey really was nervous of him, then initiating Full Bonding would only scare him further – let Logan see that his hobbies did not include eating nails for breakfast or sacrificing infants under the full moon and he would settle down soon enough. Besides, as the sheaf of flimsies in his hand proved, Saran just didn't have the time…Now, what on earth was Primary Grade Mandarin Pottersham rambling on about? That man knew 24 different ways of saying absolutely nothing and used all of them every sentence he wrote…

A good contender for "world's fastest shower", Trey cursed himself for sleeping so deeply and was hurrying down the grandiose sweeping staircase with no regard for its splendour in less than five minutes. To his relief, Saran was deeply engrossed in a thick sheaf of important looking flimsies, and the inside of Trey's mouth that had suddenly gone drier than the Sahara at the thought of making "small talk" with the _Commissioner of the LEO, for pity's sake! _over breakfast abruptly started to crank out the saliva again in a flood that made Trey gulp. Seating himself, he nodded to the servant who stepped forward to pour coffee, and accepted a bowl of freshly diced fruit. Carefully watching Saran, he followed with two slices of toast with butter and shred-less marmalade, declining anything else even though his stomach still had a hollow echo. Assuming Saran bothered to have any of Trey's belongings shipped from his apartment on Halfway, he had a jar of his favourite thick-cut shredded marmalade and no way was he going to irritate his Sentinel by costing him more money in food. Making sure that Saran noticed him as little as possible for as long as possible was now the Logan objective.

At exactly seven o'clock, just as the Blood Sun seemed to rest on the tip of the spiked dome of the Basilica Gloriana like some ancient wretch's head impaled on a spear, Saran's heavily armoured personal air-skiff took off from the roof of the Commissioner's Palace over the city. Saran immediately buried himself in _The Times_, having earlier told Mirrim to take the "scenic" route and de-tint the windows so that Trey could see outside. Back in the mid-21st Century, a British newspaper had been unable to make the transition to palm-held ebooks, cyberspace publication and so forth, so seemed doomed to extinction. Instead, the paper's circulation had steadily risen until 70 of the globe read it. Humanity, whilst happy to have entire novels and all sorts of data on hand via the screen, took the view that breakfast was not really breakfast unless you could have a proper printed newspaper over which to pore leisurely, ready to catch charred breadstuff crumbs, dollops of marmalade, globs of porridge, splatters of milk-sodden cereal and hot beverage spillages. Wolfing down the eggs and bacon whilst hunched peering at the small calculator sized screen on the table top just didn't cut it, especially as they didn't like being hit with jam, or that sugar that missed the mug, or slops of hot coffee. Hard copy newspapers were also very good for hiding behind whilst really watching other people, as Saran did now, surreptitiously monitoring Trey peering out of the windows, seeing his Guide becoming relaxed for the first time since…well, in the entire time Saran had known the man.

All sorts of sci-fi movies had tried to picture the cities of the future and some in the late 20th Century had come almost presciently close. Indeed, at one time, there had been talk of renaming Federation Coruscant, in honour of a 20th Century sci-fi movie. Buildings of unimaginable size and increasingly opulent glory multiplied exponentially the closer you got to the Hub of the Capitol, where the LEO Commission and all the other really important buildings were. Long lines of air traffic criss-crossed the city endlessly, besides that on the ground, such a thing as a "lull" being unknown. The population of the Capitol was 102 billion _residents_, not counting daily commuters, tourists and all the other visitors. The traffic worked on the basis of cost. Ground cars, buses and the Underground were the cheapest. The higher up the "layers" of air-traffic lanes you wished to travel, the more it cost. One journey's travel two air lanes up from the ground cost about 60 galaks, not bad considering the average basic wage in the Federation of Planets was about 1200 galaks per week; to travel ten air-lanes up cost about 140, because the higher you went, the fewer the users, so the quicker the journey. This high in the air, the whole city was spread forth, like dozens of highly polished jewels laid out on a velvet cloth. Indeed, many of the richer planets had their embassies adorned with gems, golden roofs, marble, porphyry and so on. Trey swallowed…Grandfather's studied luxury seemed even more pretentious against this unconscious élan and glory…

As always, the skiff set them down in the Fire Courtyard, directly in front of the LEO Commission Palace. The entire courtyard, including the massive one hundred foot high statue of Justice in the central fountain, had been carefully inlaid with tiny tiles of polished nacre, or Mother of Pearl. Each morning as the Gold Sun rose from the south, it hit the courtyard at a certain time, turning the whole place into a blazing bowl of blinding, iridescent light that could be seen for ten miles in every direction, like fiery beacon spearing towards the heavens. Already there were dozens of tourist barges and coach-skiffs hovering overhead waiting for the spectacle.

The order that the "LEO Commissioner must land in the courtyard before Justice and walk into the building" with the rest of the plebeians had been laid down at the Commission's inception, the Powers That Be wanting to impress anew upon their appointee each day the awesome responsibility that was entailed in entering through that great colonnade past those soaring marble columns sheathed in solid gold. Glancing at his watch, Saran walked right past the wonders he and most of the Commission employees had stopped noticing years ago, into the high-domed rotunda of the lobby. Trusting Trey to keep up, Saran headed away from the main elevators where workers were already tossing a mental coin over the "shall we sardine or take the stairs?" options, towards a small, discreet alcove of turbo tubes. These tubes needed a retinal scan and a DNA scan _and_ a voice activation code before they would even consider considering whether to open the doors. Saran stepped inside and paused expectantly for the computer to announce "counter-measures" against the unauthorised occupant, but the elevator began to rise in smooth silence, and Saran realised that Singh had been his usual super-efficient self. He made a mental note to give Singh yet another pay-rise – the Vicereine was still dreaming up ways to inveigle her most prized employee back to her and his mother had turned devious cunning into an art form.

They stepped out of the elevator into a corridor with a plush peach carpet where the pile was at least a foot deep. The walls were painted cream and adorned every few feet or so with what Trey easily recognised as Old Masters and priceless tapestries. Abruptly however, Saran came to a halt in front of him and raised his hand for silence, tilting his head in a very familiar gesture – a Sentinel using his senses. "This way."

Turning back on himself, Saran went left then left again, then sort of glided silently across the opening of a side corridor. Following him, Trey heard the noise and turning his head he glimpsed a large, luxuriously appointed reception area crammed with dyspeptic looking individuals clutching various flimsies, data chips or other paraphernalia. Obviously the _front_ door to Saran's office, Trey realised as Saran opened the back door.

Marching across the entire back wall were graceful Palladian windows, framing like portraits a panoramic vista of the city's elite residences and stunningly beautiful parks and gardens. To one side of the huge room, a couple of steps led down in a spacious seating area where couches and a coffee table were arranged around a state of the art TV and sound system, and a fully stocked bar and bathroom/closet were also present. Dominating the room, directly opposite the inner door, was a huge desk that appeared to be wood until you saw that the desk top was a black glass computer screen. Walking over to it, Saran tapped lightly to the bottom left of the desk top's surface and a small square lit up red then green, a thin flat drawer extending out. From this drawer Saran took a large orange rectangular clip-on badge, which he held out to Trey. "As long as you have it on your person, the building's systems will recognise you as my Guide. I advise you strongly not to leave it in a men's room, café, kitchen, or anywhere else. When you're as high up as this level, the security system is designed to shoot first and ask questions while it's clearing the smear off the wall." Looking at his desk, he allowed himself a deep sigh. Data chips and flimsies were arranged in neat but large piles. "I've got about an hour before someone out there twigs that I've sneaked in the back way and starts pounding on the door, time to clear some of this waffle. Go and get yourself some coffee." Saran sat down, his mind already deep into his work.

Obediently, Trey slipped out, sneaked quickly past the waiting hordes and out into the main corridor, beginning to walk left. However, he had only gone a few yards when a "power dressed" woman with shoulder pads big enough to land helicopters on who had been walking past glanced at the orange badge clipped to his jacket lapel and did one of those slapstick comedy style double takes, her jaw almost bouncing off the floor. Trey scuttled past, but the human traffic following her all reacted the same way – one guy bounced off the wall and two others walked into each other; Trey quickly realised that the orange badge identified him as Saran's Guide to far more than the security system. Wheeling rapidly to his right, Trey hurried around the corner down a side corridor and practically dived into a men's room situated there, which was fortuitously deserted. Plucking the orange badge from his lapel, Trey shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket and exited the room, continuing on instead of going back the way he came. No alarms sounded and nothing nasty zapped a hole in his chest, so apparently as long as the badge was on his body the security system didn't mind it not being visible. Rejoining another main corridor, Trey relaxed as the men and women hurrying to and fro paid him not so much as a glance.

Trey found a very upmarket vending machine and was just poised to feed it his galaks when harsh reality whapped him upside the head. For a moment he remained frozen, poised with the rectangular money held between his thumb and forefinger, then very precisely returned the money to his pocket, staring at the innocuous machine. He'd been paid just before Saran captured him, but he knew Halfway's Station Manager and Chief of Police would have rushed to stop his wages and pension so fast they'd have left scorch marks in Payroll's carpet. True, Trey had lived frugally, but most of his money had gone to the Underground Railroad and child protection groups, not some high-interest savings account. Assuming that Saran did bring his belongings to Federation, Trey had a few small bits he could sell for ready cash, but nothing major. Calculating rapidly, Trey estimated that if he pared his expenditure down to the barest subsistence level, he had enough money left to last him two Earth standard years maximum – as long as he didn't pay his renewal premiums for his insurances, or take his re-tests for driving and piloting.

A bitter expression flashed across Trey's face. This was just another thing that exposed the "fact" of empaths having the same equality possessed by every other citizen as pure fiction. Once scientists accepted that the younger a child was, the quicker, easier and better they learned, the education system had rapidly been re-organised. Formal schooling now began at one year of age, with languages being taught at 18 months and mathematics at two, alongside music, gymnastics and fine art to hone gross and fine motor skills. Unlike tempestuous teens, toddlers _liked_ to learn and had no idea that they "should" or "should not" be able to do something. Children began to learn how to operate and maintain ground vehicles as soon as they were tall enough to reach the pedals and see through the windscreen, likewise with air skiffs and space vehicles, for the simple reason that a well-taught child was a far better driver/pilot than a nervous, anxious adult or arrogant, over-confident teenager. A person could take their licence exam for driving a ground vehicle at eleven, for air traffic at thirteen and space traffic at fifteen. Indeed, most schools and other educational institutions had "accelerated programmes" or scholarships sponsored by the military or business interests for drivers and pilots.

However every person had to take a re-qualifying exam, every seven years for ground vehicles, five years for air vehicles and three years for space vehicles. The re-tests were both physically and mentally rigorous, accompanied by a medical exam to boot, but were financially negligible. The 50 galak nominal fee charged was a drop in a bucket to even the lowest income family, but to someone who had no money at all, 50 galaks might well have been 5 million. Trey's Driving Licence, Air Pilot and Space Pilot Licences were all due for renewal over the next three years, which meant 150 galaks to be paid out before he'd even started on the other stuff.

The problem was the Sentinels. The view of empathic humans about themselves, that being an empath was not a beneficial thing to be, meant that most Sentinels' Guides were captured "wild empaths". The Sentinel therefore tended to develop a deep sense of insecurity born of the knowledge that _their_ empath had to be coerced into the bond and also a paranoia that bred a nice little "What's wrong with me? Why doesn't he/she want me?" inferiority complex, all of which displayed themselves in a bullying "control-freak" attitude. Possessive Sentinels could, had and did "encourage" their Guides to spend what money and assets they had (assuming the Guide managed to keep his or her job in the first place), after which the said Guide discovered he she could not pay to re-qualify, so was dependent on the Sentinel-as-chauffer to travel any significant distance. Without money of his or her own to pay towards the Intergalactic Federation of Planet's compulsory Personal Life Insurance, Medical Care Contribution and Retirement Fund Contribution that every citizen had to have as a minimum, the Guide quickly found that he or she was completely dependent upon the Sentinel being "generous" enough to put them on their own "family" cover. The Sentinels actions filtered down to the unclaimed empaths, who went further underground, so the Sentinels searched more tenaciously for them and clung harder to any Guide an individual Sentinel caught, perpetuating the vicious cycle of mistrust all over again.

Suddenly aware that he had been standing motionless in front of the vending machine for several minutes, Trey turned away and blindly entered the nearest turbo elevator, pressing the bottom button randomly as a deep despondency overtook him. Apart from the 150 galak re-take fees, even assuming Saran would allow it, there was ground, air and space vehicle insurance, his private pension funds and medical cover on top of the mandatory PLI, MCC and RFC. Assuming he lived at the bare subsistence level and paid them all this time, his two-year breathing space had just been chopped off at the knees to about eight Earth months at the most. Trey's eyes were suddenly moist as a hot wave of shame swept over him; his humiliation would be complete when he was forced to ask Gage, Blair and Simon – his friends - for "loans" they all knew he would not be able to repay – and how the hell was he supposed to do that when, no doubt, his every conversation with them would be monitored by his Sentinel or theirs?

The soft hiss of the doors retracting caused him to step forward instinctively and he exited the turbo tube only to duck reflexively as he came within an inch of being decapitated by a small flying 'droid. Automatically sliding to one side, Trey's hand dropped smoothly down…to close around nothing but jacket cloth. The bitter taste of impotent anger filled his mouth once more as he was reminded yet again that his gun was back in his apartment on Halfway, along with his former career as a police officer.

Straightening up sharply and at that moment not particularly caring if he _was_ brained by a heavy blunt object, Trey looked around him in amazement. It was artificial, but still a cavern. A _huge_ cavern. He couldn't see the other side of it and the ceiling arced away so high above that you got a crick in you neck and your eyes watered as you looked up. It was filled with cramped row upon row of soaring stacks of what looked like book stacks, at least fifty feet high around which criss-crossed walkways, gantries and flights of stairs all over the place. Mini-robots of all shapes and sizes trundled along the crowd or zipped about like giant metal hornets, several dozen people weaving their way in and out of them, up steps, along walkways and around stacks in what, from Trey's vantage point, looked like an intricate dance.

Slowly descending the stairway to ground level, Trey saw a tall, brown haired woman who seemed to be in charge. "Uh, excuse me, what….?"

She took in his lack of identification. "How did you get down here?" She asked, not unkindly.

"Uh, well, Saran, I mean the Commissioner, he's back and he sent me to –"

Her face cleared as if by magic. "Thank goodness! We're desperate down here!" Taking the startled man by the arm, she led him back towards the workstations where several people sat. "Everyone treats the admin section like they're insignificant, yet without us the whole place would grind to a halt. We've been waiting weeks for someone to come and help out with the backlog of data storage."

"Uh, well…."

"Here you are." Patting a large pile of data chips and flimsies eerily reminiscent of the piles on Saran's desk, she smiled at him. "Start on these, Stack 3064 over there, Rows 455-457. I'm Adelaide Nelson, from the ANZAC Worlds as if my name wasn't enough of a hint, if you need anything just tell me." She handed him a small text pager, patted him on the arm, and hurried off calling to a young blond youth, "Not that one, Dean, yes, over there!"

Trey look down at the flimsies and the small round data chips, holding billions upon billions of bytes of information, then around him at the harried faces and rushing backwards and forwards of the staff. It would probably be hours before Saran surfaced from his office, and he could be back up in time to leave for Saran's private residence as long as he kept his eye on the clock. Doing something useful, even if it was only filing would also take his mind of his predicament. Carefully scooping up several flimsies, he walked along the narrow gaps between stacks towards his destination. "What is this place?"

Trey nearly dropped the flimsies in a messy heap when one of the passing 'bots responded unexpectedly. During the next fifteen minutes Trey learned that this was the Repository of the IFP. Basically, fraud and embezzlement had been a lot easier to undercover when the bad guy had had to use paper ledgers; with IT, a few keystrokes could "disappear" billions untraceably. Therefore every IFP computer system in the inhabited galaxies all had one thing in common – they recorded each keystroke made on them and downloaded copies of the operator's actions into the Repository. What made the job so rushed was that they did it in real time, there was no waiting until the end of the day back-up, during which time an enterprising crook could work his way through the firewalls and do some creative editing. So advanced were the programs used that the Repository system could tell when a different person was using a User ID than the allocated individual and flagged up discrepancies in the real time data it stored and the end-of-day re-indexing that was done.

Feeling battered by the lists of facts, figures and percentages rattled off by the little robot as it floated like a robotic swami in mid-air, Trey slumped as it finally flew off and concentrated firmly on filing the data chips, keeping his mouth shut.

"Secure files and off." Saran gave the order as he stood carefully up from his chair so his back didn't punish him for speedy movement; not that it should have in the first place – he was barely in forty-five, not even middle-aged like his mother or William Ellison…oops, whose birthday celebration he would have to attend in his capacity as LEO Commissioner. Ah, another fun evening done up like a giant comedy penguin, sipping champagne that would be flatly warm by the time he managed to escape this office to get there and being pigeonholed by some boring Mandarin, Senator, Speaker or Lesser/Associate House scion who would say absolutely nothing for an hour just because he or she wanted to go back and one-up their friends by being able to crow, "I was talking to Saran – the LEO Commissioner, yes, - he's such a darling, and he said…." Still, his mother and siblings would be there as well as his aunt, Matriarch Madhuri and his cousins. Her third son, Ahkef, was a similar age to himself and had a highly entertaining acerbic wit; Saran had spent many hours standing side by side with his cousin while Ahkef assassinated the characters of the _noblesse_ whilst hiding his commentary behind a champagne flute. Saran wondered what his family's opinion would be of his Guide. At least there would be no animosity over his rank in the hierarchy of High House Syal. When his aunt the Matriarch had made him her Body Heir over her own children, Saran, already the Body Heir of his mother the Vicereine, had braced himself for the explosion, but his cousins had fallen upon him with expressions of gratitude, relief and heartfelt cries of "Thank god she lumbered you with the nightmare!" Nevertheless while not consciously cruel, they were a blunt spoken lot, especially the Vicereine, and the Matriarch had no time for timidity.

On the end of that thought, Saran's expression changing to one of concern as it suddenly dawned on him that he had sent Trey on a ten minute coffee run over five Earth hours ago. Cautiously he extended his senses to the reception area and surrounding corridors, tuning out the thumps, wheezes and whiffs emanating from the bodies scattered about, including the tenaciously still seated few bureaucrats who would have to be bombed out of his lobby. Nothing. The biological signatures that Saran had imprinted on his Sentinel radar back on Halfway were AWOL.

Decisively Saran exited his office by the side door his Guide had used, picturing Trey wandering hopelessly lost through the gargantuan edifice that was the LEO Commission Palace. It had happened, though amazingly infrequently for a building that was a thousand storeys high and contained 1,000,000 personnel. One guy hadn't turned up on the first day of his job in a senior position and sparked a five-day missing person hunt when his wife reported that he hadn't come home that night. He was found on the other side of the building on day six, asleep in one of the staff kitchens, having become hopelessly disoriented after getting lost on Level 62, not knowing how to get an outside line to call home, living off whatever he could swipe out of the fridges and using various of the building's gymnasium changing rooms for showers.

Once in the corridor, Saran cautiously "dialled up" his olfactory sense, catching the very faint but still present unique scent of Trey Logan's body. Walking slowly and alert to any sign that he was beginning to zone, Saran followed the invisible scent trail down one corridor, then into a men's room where it lingered in front of the washbasins for several minutes without going to the urinal or into a stall, before going back out again. Deciding not to try to decipher what his Guide was doing with or to himself in those few minutes, Saran obediently followed the scent trail out to the corridor and down the other way, carefully avoiding the other workers hurrying to and fro. None so much as glanced at him, which was exactly what Saran expected. Not only was he not wearing any "official" symbols of office but as an inter-galactically famous movie star had explained at a party, he was "out of context". The Law Enforcement and Order Commissioner was a man who travelled in high style with bodyguards and flunkies in armoured skiffs with screaming-siren police escorts and who was filmed/photographed by the news media behind his massive desk or attending some high society party. Remove all those trappings and you had just one more man in a suit amongst two dozen more identical to him walking down just another corridor.

He paused in front of a vending machine and took a surreptitious sniff. Yet again, the concentration of body odour indicated Trey had stood in front of the thing for several minutes, yet there was no accompanying after-scent of tea, coffee or any other of the beverages, meaning that he hadn't purchased anything. After completing his mysterious communion with the vending machine, Trey had suddenly swung sharply to the turbo tubes, and his scent chopped off abruptly before the doors of the one to the extreme left. Saran stepped inside and the doors shut, the elevator waiting with mindless patience as he decided where he wanted to go.

Leaning forward, Saran peered at the keypads. Though he had been on suppressant meds for years and infrequently used his Sentinel senses, the Vicereine had ensured that her Sentinel son had had the finest training any Sentinel could wish for. Keeping his sense of smell dialled up as a distraction against zoning, Saran dialled up his eyesight and saw, clearly delineated on the bottom-most pressure pad, a thumbprint. In a millionth of a millisecond, the eidetic memory the Vicereine had had all her children designed with compared the thumbprint now with the thumbprint in the personnel file that Saran had browsed through on Halfway while searching for Trey, and came up with: EXACT MATCH. Saran pressed the pad also, wondering what Trey wanted in the Repository. The tube dropped with a swift whoosh. Even though much of 20th century sci-fi technology – warp drives, jump gates, star gates, artificial wormholes, voice-activated home furnishings – was now sci-fact, there still a few things that had never been really achieved, like transporter beams and, incongruously, voice-activated elevators. The latter were simply too inefficient and the technology needed to make them capable of following the instruction of more than one voice at a time was simply too exorbitant to be practical.

A minute later, Saran stepped out onto the walkway and looked down to the floor level, spotting a familiar dark head immediately. Trey was in conversation with non other than Adelaide Nelson, whose innocuous job title of "Repository Administrator" gave no hint of the truly awesome power she wielded as Custodian of the Intergalactic Federation of Planet's sole store of very, very, _very_ sensitive information about it's every citizen, up to and including the President him or herself. Her smile, however, was genuinely warm as she talked to the young man.

"Mesdame Nelson." Saran pitched his voice so as not to startle the pair, smiling to ease any awkwardness.

Adelaide turned an even bigger smile on him, her voice enthusiastic, "Commissioner, thank you for sending Trey. He's been a god-send, honestly...he's about the first clerk I've had whose got some _initiative_…"

Saran's face crinkled into an amused smile. "You put my Guide to work as a filing clerk?"

Her smile abruptly froze in place. "Guide…?"

"I-I- d-d-don't mind."

Both of them turned to look at Trey, who they had momentarily forgotten. Saran's dialled up senses caught the way the young man's heart gave a lurching beat as he repeated, "I d-d-don't mind, helping out, r-really."

Despite his self-lecture, Saran felt himself frown at Trey's softly stuttered words and his heightened senses promptly measured Logan's instant responses as his face went a distinctly chalky white and his knuckles clenched in a death grip on the flimsies in his hands. Saran was suddenly convinced that if Trey had had a cuddly toy or cushion he would have clutched it to his middle with both arms around it in a textbook self-protecting gesture. Suddenly wanting to ease Trey's fear, Saran made another instant decision, turning and cutting off Adelaide Nelson's apologies in mistaking the Commissioner's Guide – did she have to make Trey sound like a naughty puppy for pity's sake? – for the new filing clerk she had asked for several weeks ago…

"If Trey really has been a real help to you –" He began.

"Oh yes, truly Commissioner, he's done more to clear the backlog in one day than some of the temps I've been having have managed in a week." Adelaide shivered delicately. "It was that work experience girl we had in over the Easter holiday while she was waiting to go to university. Straight A student, nicest girl you could wish to meet…" Her smile changed to a grimace, "It wasn't until after she left we realised that she'd been filing things that started with "The" under "T"."

Trey would have about as much fun as a man with a migraine at a rock concert if all he had to do was sit there all day while Saran worked his way through the daily grind of being LEO Commissioner. "Then hire him as your new filing clerk." Saran "suggested", noting how Trey relaxed in the face of his apparent approval. "I know never to mess with the needs of the Repository."

Adelaide beamed. "Thank you, Commissioner. Do you mind, Trey?"

"Uh…no ma'am. I'd be happy to help." Trey's smile was equally blinding.

Saran filed away for future reference the fact that Trey had been surprised at Adelaide actually giving him the choice of whether he wanted to do the job. Trey was just as much a citizen of the Federation, with all the rights and protections thereof, regardless of being Saran's Guide – maybe even more so because of that – but at the moment, there were more pressing concerns. Saran's stomach had long since passed the stage of sarkily asking if he was on a radical new diet or had simply had his throat cut and was now just screaming _Foo-ooo-oood!_ at him, and a quick sensory scan of Trey's electrolytes and blood sugar proved that the young man had ingested nothing since his bowl of fruit and two slices of toast at breakfast, not even coffee. "I'll bring him back, but right now we're going for a late lunch." Saran promised her.

Leading the way back to the turbo tube, Saran ordered his skiff to be ready on the launch pad when they arrived. Rumours and gossip spread through the Capitol like verbal dysentery, and the entire planet had doubtless known about his newly acquired Guide within ten minutes of Saran capturing him in that disused corridor on Halfway. Friends, enemies, the media, the curious and the ambitious would be circling like sharks in a blood frenzy, and Saran was not inclined to put himself or Trey on public display today, thank you very much. Rapidly discarding possibilities, Saran silently settled on Marriette's – the most exclusive restaurant in the Capitol. A meal cost the equivalent of a couple of annual salaries but "invisible" service, privacy and absolute discretion were guaranteed, and Saran was _almost_ sure there was no truth in the rumour that the one time a waiter had been bribed to "leak" something Mariette had personally shot him to death in the kitchen and got rid of the body by dicing it up and serving it in various dishes the next day.

A quick vid call to the _Maitre D'_ got them a table for two in the arboretum, which offered further panoramic vistas of the Capitol and was not visible to the hovering tourist skiffs that were kept at a firm distance from the eating elite – again, rumours persisted that Mariette had a couple of plasma-gun nests hidden in the shrubbery of the front colonnade to dispose of any of the _hoi polloi_ that ventured too close.

White-gloved waiters and waitresses seemed to almost glide through the place as the _Maitre D'_ personally escorted them to the table; Mariette himself only came forth when the President came to dine. The place was designed to look like a garden: large, solid wooden tables with hand-carved wooden chairs scattered artistically about on genuine Earth-quarried Italian marble flooring over a foot thick, in between restfully tinkling fountains and gloriously-coloured, headily scented flower bays, with real exotic birds trilling in the branches and brightly-hued fish swimming in the artificial streams.

Saran considered the menu carefully, which was long, exotic and had no prices listed anywhere. Despite his hunger, he usually had only a light salad and a glass of wine, but something told him that Trey, who _had_ to be much hungrier from _not_ swigging coffee between dealing with self-important politicians all morning, would eat nothing more than Saran himself did. He was the Body Heir of the Matriarch of High House Syal and the Vicereine of Olban and had more money than some solar systems. _Hell, I own a couple of solar systems. It's time to splash out a little._ "I'm hungry and I want meat." he mused deliberately aloud. "Maybe the potato skins to start, then a steak. What do you think?"

"That sounds okay." Trey said calmly. "Is the bison steak with feta cheese salad good?"

"Superb." Saran assured him as a waiter mysteriously appeared by their table. Mariette's staff were apparently psychically trained to know when the patrons were ready to order. He carried a wine list in his hand, but nothing so gauche as an e-pad. Mariette's staff could memorise an order for twenty people perfectly in two seconds flat. Gesturing away the wine list, Saran ordered for them, "Two deep fried potato skins appetizers, with bacon, cheddar cheese with beer parsley and garlic and a sour cream with chive dip, followed by a bison steak with feta cheese salad and a Scottish Angus steak with black pepper sauce, both done medium rare, and a bottle of '77 Chardonnay."

The waiter bowed and was gone, returning less than a minute later carrying reverentially the vintage, highly prized wine that was a snip at 20,000 galaks per glass. Saran went through the age-old tasting ritual then nodded as the waiter poured both a full glass and left the bottle. Saran kept up a light flow of chitchat whilst his analytical mind processed what he was learning about his reluctant Guide. As LEO Commissioner, Saran knew all aspects of his life were of great interest to many people, and he had been monitored by security and protection departments such as the Dark Angels, for one, practically since birth. It was a given that any Guide he acquired would instantly become the number one priority of every interested party. The President and his mother the Vicereine had probably had a dossier about Trey on their desks within an hour. Saran knew with certainty that Trey's police personnel file, full of the "blank" periods Saran himself had noted on Halfway, were quietly giving various "shadowy" people ulcers and sky-high blood pressure. Saran had sternly ordered that security agents make no personal contact with Trey himself, not wanting to antagonise the youth any more than necessary.

This luncheon was proving to be very, if unintentionally on Trey's part, enlightening. The Halfway Station Police Department's personnel file (so obviously rubber-stamped by some pen pusher who'd never checked a word of it, because it had more holes than a fishing net) listed him as him as son of working-class ore traders on the frontier worlds near the Rim of Known Space, or simply the "Rim" as it was known. He was an only child, despite his name meaning "three" or "third", but even now sixty years after his last major blockbuster, there were still people naming their children Trey Logan So-and-So after the former movie star, so the lack of older siblings was not a discrepancy.

According to the file, Trey had been orphaned at a very young age when his parents died within months of each other from Dust Lung, a disease similar to the ancient tuberculosis and emphysema that had killed a lot of men on Earth who mined coal, worked with asbestos, etc., right up until the late 21st Century. On the frontier worlds the line between rags and riches was often a precarious, highly unpredictable one prone to sudden shifts in unexpected directions; with safety equipment like asteroid breathers and ore filters often very expensive, the traders, miners, adventurers and so forth often preferred their money to be in the bank. With no living family, Trey had promptly been made a ward of one of the Charity Commissions and sent to a Trader's Charity School, where he lived a live of boring rectitude until he attained his BED – Basic Educational Diploma – with grades that were commendable if not spectacular. He had left the Free Frontier Worlds, travelled all the way through various systems with an amazing lack of anything interesting occurring, before arriving on Halfway Station where he had enrolled in the Police Cadet Academy and had been beavering away as a cop ever since. The End.

But…Trey was handling his current surroundings with a calm competence and lack of gawking awe that bespoke a more than passing acquaintance with the finer things in life. He showed no inexperienced hesitance or embarrassment in dealing with the Mariette's staff, did not twitch facial muscles agitatedly or pull at his clothing with his fingers, or fumble nervously with the cutlery. He had immediately known which of the glasses on the table was for water, wine and brandy and had immediately begun to use his cutlery from the outside in. Most telling, Trey had been reading the menu for himself with clear fluency, yet it was written in pure Earth French, one of the Earth Pure Tongues only taught in private schools – and the more exclusive private schools at that. Frontier World schools, especially those charity-based, had a chequered, nomadic and usually short life-span as they closed, moved, re-opened and re-branded themselves depending on the cash flow. Staff turnover was something like 98, "record-keeping" was patchy at best, and the curriculum focussed narrowly on teaching frontier-world orphaned children to survive in an inhospitable universe, one in which they were unlikely to ever need to speak real French.

_Curiouser and curioser, to quote Alice,_ mused Saran as they finished off their starter. He kept up the light flow of chitchat and by the time they'd begun their main course he was glad he had not fully bonded with Trey so the empath could not sense his deep anger as Saran mentally added the idiotic bureaucrat in Halfway PD who'd rubber stamped Trey's personnel file to his "hit list". The last half hour of idle conversation had illuminated to Saran – and anyone else who bothered to read it – that Trey's file was virtually all fiction. The file – once again Saran blessed the eidetic memory his mother had designed him with – blandly dismissed Trey Logan's career choice in a single sentence: _'Detective Logan's friends Captain Simon Banks and Dr Gage Butler saw his potential for law enforcement and encouraged him to join the Police Academy.'_ Saran just managed to terminate a loud, derisive snort and instead speared a perfectly fried potato with more force than necessary. It was obvious that his Guide had a whole bushel of secrets and that was something that seriously worried Saran Van den Mikhail, who had faced down a DNA-shredder bomb waving Nyokrishian terrorist without a qualm.

Saran Van den Mikhail disliked mysteries and puzzles and secrets because the one thing they all had in common was a tendency to suddenly pop up years after the fact and bite you in the ass – or worse blow up in your face…

_To be continued…_

© 2002 C D Stewart


	5. Chapters 9 & 10

Author's Note: _At this point I would like to say "thank you" to all those people who emailed saying how much they enjoyed the __Dark Angels story, and also for the patience that has been shown, considering these penultimate two chapters are so much later than I said they would be. In February 2003 I went to Washington D.C. & New York for a holiday, and had a wonderful time, but upon returning to the UK I became ill. I was very encouraged by how much/many people said they'd enjoyed this story, particularly as my Muse was also tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and enough aspirin to medicate a city. It has taken me this long not only to get over being the poster girl for respiratory distress but also to relocate my creativity (if anyone has read New Kid In Town by Linda Stoops at Wolfpup's Den, that pretty much summed up my state of mind for a while). Obviously because of my illness I have built up a backlog of work to finish – including several The Sentinel and The Magnificent Seven stories – but unfortunately the "generates no income" curse means the fanfic gets put last on the To-Do list. To all those readers waiting for Dark Angels XI-XII (the end, promise) Destined Pt 2, Perspective (#3 Telempathy Series)_, _Primal, Bear Necessities/Bear Necessities (GDP version), Shadowforce and Rules of Engagement I must again ask for long-term patience; I will try and get to these as soon as possible, but realistically it may be several months before I am in a position to post to my site again. At the risk of teasing, a potential sequel to Dark Angels is simmering in my cerebellum and I am also tentatively dipping a toe in the world of Stargate SG-1 fanfic (see main page of my website), so I'll see how things pan out. But look, two more chapters – nearly there!_ _Note January 2004 – these chapters have now been beta'd, thanks to Shallan! All remaining screw-ups are mine. _ Chapter IX – Remember, If The Enemy Are In range, So Are You **LEO Commissioner's Residence, The Capitol, Federation…**

"No, I do not require tea!" Saran snapped the words out icily, gesturing the maid away with a sharp hand flick.

He focussed his chillingly angry gaze on the computer screen in front of him, which surprisingly didn't instantly melt into slag. Why was this planet the home of every windbag in the Inhabited Galaxies? Was there no one capable of stating their case succinctly and _briefly_? Apparently not – with disgust he tossed the report on his desk into his out tray. It was an expanded version of the one on the VDU, and basically spent five pages trying to weasel out of admitting blame for the current mess Saran had spent two hours dealing with. Gerrick Majiri was – or rather had been - the biggest vibe dealer in three galaxies and they'd caught him red-handed with agents of the Ateuam Empire, but because a couple of lawyers couldn't be bothered with the proper paperwork, the slime had come within an inch of getting away Scot free!

Saran's glower lessened slightly as he looked at the messages in his in tray. The filing job in Admin kept Trey usefully occupied and out from under Saran's feet, but Race Keegan's Guide, Gage Butler, had been tight-beaming Trey almost daily as if convinced that Saran would kill the other man and bury him under the patio if not constantly checked upon. Thank goodness the man had found that new installation on Hyperion and dropped the constant messaging off! Saran leaned back in his chair and sighed to himself. This desk in his private study at the LEO Commissioner's Residence was an exact replica of the one in his office at the LEO Commission Palace because he often came "home" to his official residence and worked late into the night. Again, Trey Logan had kept out of his way, which pleased Saran. He had no idea when he would have opportunity to fully bond with the empath and wasn't particularly interested in making time. His initially illuminating conversation with his Guide at Mariette's had fizzled into nothing. No security checks had brought up anything. Perhaps he had been a bit paranoid, Saran acknowledged to himself. If the blanks in Logan's life had been anything that major, surely they would have been setting of bells and whistles all over the place?

Standing up, Saran stretched till his joints popped and walked over to the almost floor-to-ceiling French windows overlooking the precisely manicured gardens. He preferred the less regimented view from his ziggurat on Eden, but considering how little he got to go there, he'd take what he could get. Once more his lips thinned with displeasure. William Ellison's birthday ball would start at lunch and continue into the small hours of the night. As LEO Commissioner, Saran would be required to endure every tedious second of the event; wasting hours he could spend doing actual work. There was also the possibility of unimaginable violence, for the gossip columns were full of nothing but the fact that not one but _both_ of William Ellison's long-estranged sons would be attending.

"Miss Suiko Taisuke to see you, Commissioner."

Saran turned, but Singh was already bowing out, his genuflection precise but somehow hostile, in the same way his voice had carried a subtle inflection of displeasure.

As LEO Commissioner, Saran had made it a practice to never receive people on "business" once he had left his office at the LEO Commission Palace unless they had come to report the commencement of the Apocalypse or an alien invasion or both. With a smile that went no deeper than the muscles required to create it, Saran ushered his guest to sit, knowing that he was being punished in Singh's own inimitable way. Saran hadn't had any of Trey's possessions sent on from Halfway because he had assumed that Trey would simply use Saran's Guide Allowance – extremely generous as befit the LEO High Commissioner's – to purchase clothing far superior to the off-the-peg items he'd previously owned.

Two days after the lunch at Mariette's, Singh had entered the solar during Trey and Saran's breakfast and coolly informed Saran that he had had Logan's belongings brought from Halfway and had them put in the Guide's room. The expression of pathetic relief on Logan's face before he transmuted his expression back into its customary bland meekness had spoken volumes even before Saran's surprised questioning had established that Trey had no knowledge of any such thing as the Guide Allowance's existence. Saran's household staff had clearly taken a liking to the youth and in his own obliviousness Saran had made an elementary mistake and forgotten his mother's advice: _never annoy the hired help, for their retribution is timeless and terrible_.

To Saran's relief, the upshot of Suiko's visit was that her father the Patriarch Hanzai Taisuke required an urgent meeting with Saran. The fact that the Patriarch had not entrusted the request to artificial communication channels indicated the urgency of the request. Saran took it seriously. The current Patriarch of High House Taisuke was an eminently calm and sensible individual, not given to creating an atmosphere of clandestine intrigue to boost his ego. He had also sent his favourite child to deliver the message, even though Suiko was not the Body Heir. Taisuke Technologies were the cutting edge of scientific development, especially in space travel and anything that could hinder humanity's ever-expanding colonisation of space was something that needed to be addressed.

Setting up the required appointment, he personally showed her out of the Residence then came back in. It was time to make nice with the Guide - thereby showing a properly apologetic attitude to Singh and the rest of the staff - otherwise Saran knew his sheets would be over starched from here to eternity, his coffee would be served too strong and cold and they'd probably even put salt not sugar on his cereal. Striding purposefully up the stairs, he dialled up his sense of hearing and picked up Trey's heartbeat coming from his Guide's suite. As he walked along the corridor, his other senses going "up" slightly in response to his Guide's close proximity, it gradually dawned on Saran that he could detect Logan's scent in none of the rooms he passed and only on the corridor that led to Logan's suite. The familiar irritation rose again – for goodness sake, did the man do anything other than scurry straight to his room like a frightened rabbit the minute he set foot through the door?

The line of thought was instantly forgotten as Trey's heartbeat suddenly accelerated. Automatically Saran surged forward – his Guide was in distress! Reaching the main door to Trey's suite on the outer corridor, he unceremoniously thrust it open and went in.

Trey was sat on the bed, a hard-copy newspaper in his hand, his face clearly upset. Jumping as Saran barged in, he scrambled off the silk bedcover and stood facing Saran, confused anxiety in every line of his body. "S-S-Sentinel?"

"What happened?" Snapped Saran more curtly than he intended.

Trey looked more confused than ever, his eyes flicking about as if expecting a murdered body to suddenly appear on the floor or slavering alien monsters to burst through the windows. "Uh…?"

"Your heart rate shot up," clarified Saran tartly.

"O-oh. Sorry," Trey apologised instantly, but did not answer the question.

Saran had automatically taken in the details of the suite that he had not entered since before Trey had received his belongings, as his Guide usually met him at the breakfast table. It looked exactly as it had, only less dusty,during the long years it had remained empty when the LEO Commissioner had not been a Sentinel and the current one had had no Guide. There was nothing to show it was inhabited, except for the bedside table nearest the French windows that led to the balcony overlooking the gardens. That had a "Teamaid" on it, next to which there was currently a small plate that had a half eaten sandwich on it. Saran could clearly smell lemons.

"What is that?"

"Lemon cheese sandwich," Trey replied promptly, still watching him like a rabbit watching a fox.

"I meant that newspaper you're hiding behind your back."

_Bingo_, Logan's heartbeat shot up again.

Wordlessly Saran held out his hand. Swallowing Trey slowly held out the "newspaper" – nowadays clear plastic flimsies with the text and graphics printed on them that could be reused repeatedly to conserve resources - and Saran took it, his eyes scanning down the page. _The Galactic Herald_ was actually a fairly reasonable newspaper, both in its hardcopy and cyberspace formats, more or less unbiased and impartial. Unfortunately what let it down was its gossip column _The Party Line _by D. N. Rennac, which was vicious, salacious and often just a breath away from libel, slander and hard-core porn; since the controversial column generated a great deal of sales and income for the paper, the savage columnist was reasonably assured of being able to spew his bile with impunity. Saran's eyes hardened as he read the column – Rennac had waxed lyrical on William Ellison's upcoming party, speculating in the very crudest and sexually explicit terms on how the Dark Guide had "persuaded" both Detective Lord James Ellison and his elder, illegitimate half-brother Captain Ellison Vincent Hunter to attend their estranged sire's celebration. Lurid details of Blair Sandburg's sexual abuse and torture at the hands of Alexandra Barnes were also printed.

He looked up; Trey's face was white, his lips bloodless. "I-I-It's lies. B-B-Blair's not like that," Trey whispered hoarsely.

Saran gave an irritated snort. "I _know_ that, Jim would never have bonded with him if he was!" He bit back an urge to snap as Trey flinched and dropped his eyes to the floor. "Look, leave this with me. I think it's high time that D. N. Rennac retired – permanently."

"You can do that?"

Saran felt a surge of satisfaction as Trey's cringing expression changed to a mixture of hope and surprise. He smiled wolfishly at his Guide. "I'm Saran Van den Mikhail. I can do pretty much _anything._"

Aware he was making a bit of a grand _exeunt stage left_, Saran marched out with the "newspaper" in his grasp, slowing his pace as he took the offending flimsies back towards his study. Yet again, indecision stirred within him and he paused on the grand staircase, wondering if he should just forget everything else and initiate Full Bonding with Logan. He had gone beyond annoyed at the way Logan persisted in keeping up this frightened rabbit routine…

_No._ Saran's inner steel asserted itself. Saran Van den Mikhail wasn't going to be one of those sappy Sentinels wrapped around his Guide's little finger. Trey Logan was the subordinate and he would obey Saran promptly if he knew what was good for him.

Saran continued on his way, knowing that his vacillation was a by-product of his meds. The medication currently being taken by Saran and Logan suppressed the bonding chemicals in their bodies and prevented Bonding Heat from progressing beyond the initial stages, but it only _suppressed_ not _eliminated_. Underneath the medication, Saran knew his body chemistry was simmering away with a need to get at the Guide. Well, tough. He was the LEO Commissioner and he had work backed up to the middle of next week even before Patriarch Taisuke started being all mysterious. Logan could wait…

LEO Commissioner's Palace, Federation, a few days later… 

Saran carefully replaced the wafer-thin delicate porcelain cup decorated with blue flowers on the equally fragile saucer as he finished the lightly flavoured tea, a signal to his three guests that it was time to get down to business.

Communication on several levels had already been going on. The presence of the Patriarch's Consort, Keiko, and Body Heir, Hanzai's daughter Hamiko, with the man himself indicated whatever was troubling Hanzai was serious, but not immediately disastrous, otherwise the Consort and Body Heir would have been safely far from Federation. Their presence was also an excellent diversionary tactic. Patriarch Taisuke of High House Taisuke suddenly making a visit to the LEO High Commissioner would have sent alarm bells ringing throughout not just Federation but the Inhabited Galaxies. However, he, his wife and Body Heir making a courtesy call to the Body Heir of the Matriarch of High House Akureyri excited not so much as the blink of an eyelid, particularly in view of the rapidly impending Birthday Ball for Patriarch William Ellison of High House Ellison. Due to Saran's friendship with William's albeit estranged son, the Body Heir Lord James, it was probable that Patriarch Hanzai and his family had just come to discreetly sound Saran out for advice on gift giving.

Seated on her father's right due to her rank as Body Heir, Hamiko lowered her eyelashes briefly in a signal that did not go unmissed by Saran. Hamiko had decided that her successor would be a Patriarch – a male child, and she had, as was customary, dropped a circumspect "hint" inviting Saran to be co-parent of her intended first child. The deliberately slow lowering of her eyelashes was asking whether Saran had made his decision. Despite the gravity of this current meeting, Saran was still able to seriously consider the ramifications of the proposal with one part of his keen brain.

The continuing popularity of co-parentage came about because the Designated Parent bore the "duty of care" to the offspring; as co-parent a person could have genetic successors without having to bear any burden of financial responsibility or investing of time, etc., etc., unlike a Spousal Parent, who bore equal responsibility for the offspring with his or her spouse. Co-parentage Covenants were frequent amongst celebrities, such as a famous movie star who might agree to be a co-parent for a dedicated fan who wished to be the mother or father of their child, and also amongst by monarchs, planetary rulers and so on, such as a person who wanted or needed their offspring to be the child of a king or queen.

Now the notion was up close and personal, Saran wasn't entirely sure he liked it. While it was true that a Co-parent bore no responsibilities for his or her offspring, neither could he or she claim any right to it – and considering this potential child would have the LEO High Commissioner as it's genetic sire, Saran considered having the right to kick it's butt or enforce corrective measures should he or she turn out to be a homicidal maniac or intergalactic criminal pretty important.

There were also other issues to consider. In co-parentage the resulting child or children were the heirs of the Designated Parent only, the child could lay no claim to any of part of the co-parent's estate, such as wealth or a title like "Empress", any and all of which went to the co-parent's official children, in the same way that illegitimate children – for example, Captain Hunter – had no claim on the parent's estate. The reverse was also true – a co-parent could not suddenly appear for a slice of the pie if the child abruptly became wealthy or famous. Unburdened by not having to give the child money or time, conversely the co-parent had absolutely no rights over any part of the child's life – it's name, place of birth, type of education, religious faith, career, medical records _et al_ – were closed to the co-parent. If the Designated Parent died while the child was in infancy, a minor, or still below his or her "majority" - the legal age of adulthood in whatever culture they resided in - custody of the child automatically went to the _Designated Parent's_ nearest biological relative, not the _child's_, or whoever the Designated Parent listed a Guardian in his or her will.

Problems arose because, of course, Real Life was never _that _neat and tidy. Back in the 20th and 21st Centuries, the medical practice of fertility treatment had been like having a racehorse pulling a coal cart, or having Cavemen piloting the USS Enterprise in battle against the Klingons. Great Britain's Foetal Rights Act, personally produced by the dying King William V, was the first step that eventually led Science to Uterine Replicators – the Holy Grail of fertility that prevented the killing of unwanted children (made a capital offence under the United States of America's Foetal Homicide Bill of 2113) and also ensured that _every single human being_ could have a child of his or her own, even if a biological pregnancy would normally have killed a woman or her child, or a man was incapable of impregnating a woman due to biological injury or sexual orientation.

However, William had only introduced the Foetal Rights Act to the House of Lords in 2082, and the king was driven as much by political ambition as humanitarian concern. Due to vigorous investment and campaigning in the early 21st Century, Britain once more came to be outstanding in the field of medical research and development, but the decades of fertility practitioners using "anonymous" sperm and egg donors had come back to bite them in the ass.

The first case had been brought in 2009 by, of all people, a Luxembourg banker. Developing cancer, the banker's best, indeed only, hope for survival was a bone-marrow transplant from an "immediate" family member. The banker had no siblings or any "official" children, but had fathered eight offspring through sperm donation. He wished to locate the children in the hope that one would prove a match. While that case was still being argued in the European courts, the second case had arrived – a well-to-do Spanish woman who had lost her husband, son and daughter in the same car accident. The biological mother of four children through egg donation, the Spaniard wished to make them heirs to her estate in the absence of any other family. Shrewd King William and his brother, Prince Henry, could see the brewing political, financial, social and ethical storm on the horizon and were aware of the potential devastation, particularly as they had family knowledge of the issues; a childhood back injury meant that their cousin Princess Beatrice had been "strongly advised" that pregnancy was not a good idea, something that had caused the Princess great emotional pain, and their cousin Louisa, the Queen Consort of Spain, had suffered several miscarriages before successfully producing the Infanta Isabella, later Queen Isabella II the Great.

Such had been the direction of Saran's concerns. Nor was there just himself to consider, but his family too. Contrary to most peoples' beliefs, the High House members rarely designed their offspring's exact physical features other than ensuring they were generally pleasantly aligned. Assuming Hamiko designed the child to be a boy, there was a good chance it might resemble Saran's long dead father Aleksandr Van den Mikhail, something that would cause his mother the Vicereine emotional distress. The formidable Vicereine would also want to be involved in the life of what would be her first grandchild. On top of that, there was the child itself. Saran's half-brother Daniel was the result of a Co-Parentage Covenant, and while he was secure in the love of his maternal family, Daniel had never had anything good to say about a father who had been interested in nothing other than the prestige of having the Vicereine of Olban be the mother of his child.

Carefully, Saran set the delicate cup and saucer on his desk, turning the cup's handle to the left as he did so, knowing Hamiko would understand his negative answer. In such matters, nothing was ever uttered aloud so any offence could ever be taken. Offence was a dangerous thing to cause to powerful, wealthy people who had entire personal armies with the firepower to wipe out solar systems at their command.

As if oblivious to the few seconds of Saran's distraction, Patriarch Hanzai spoke clearly. "Two issues are of concern, Commissioner. I mention both because they may be connected, or they may not, as I myself happen to believe they are _not_. The first is incidents of disruption and attempts at sabotage at our shipbuilding yards, and also attempted arson at the Lab."

Saran frowned. Taisuke Technologies manufactured key components in a wide range of spaceship computer systems and the many transport systems humans used to travel interstellar distances in hours and days instead of millennia. Taisuke Technologies R&D, Research and Development, unit was also of such superiority that it was referred to simply throughout the Inhabited Galaxies as "_the_ Lab."

"The Lab" was how Taisuke Technologies had become High House Taisuke in the first place, so long ago. An avid fan of old 20th Century Western sci-fi shows, the first Patriarch, Honshu Taisuke I, had been bankrolled by High House Ellison and invented the first _reliable_ Stargate big enough to transport human beings and motor vehicles. The first small Stargate network, named like the invention itself after the characters and actors in an American TV show called _Stargate SG-1_, had revolutionised space travel in Earth's spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. The first four Stargates now formed the North, South, East and West entrances to the Smithsonian's Interstellar Museum – O'Neill, Jackson, Carter and Tealc. The next four, Anderson, Shanks, Tapping and Judge, were on display in the Museum itself and one was activated daily in rotation for visitors. Hammond, Fraiser, Quinn, Davis, Rothery and Nemec Gates were all on display at the Taisuke ziggurat on Eden, despite the family being offered fabulous sums for them over the centuries.

"These criminal activities have increased since Dr Butler verified the _sentience_ of the aliens?" Saran discerned.

Hanzai inclined his head. "Indeed, upon capture, every one of the would-be saboteurs and arsonists has proved to be affiliated with Humanity First or one of the other pro-humanist crackpot groups. I have great confidence in Taisuke Technologies security systems, but it only takes one idiot to get lucky once and thousands of innocent people could be killed."

Saran nodded agreement, aware that stress was making Hanzai blunter in speech than usual for a man of extremely exquisite diction. High House Taisuke was the most reserved and formal of the High Houses, a situation increased by the fact that Hanzai's Consort Keiko was the sister of the Japanese Emperor. Taisuke's concern for the welfare of his employees was genuine, and a shipyard building spaceships was the very worst place for a disaster to occur, as the death toll could reach six figures in seconds.

"This situation is also irritating my employees," Hanzai continued. "This is a time of great potential for us, yet we cannot work unhindered."

Saran carefully bit back a smile. The ultra-conservative Hanzai was a little boy when it came to spaceships; Saran had been one of the few allowed to view the Patriarch's personal collection of uncut-tape 20th Century science-fiction shows, a collection worth billions of galacs. The _Doctor Who_ episodes alone were worth several billion, and the Patriarch raked in a fortune in vid royalties from them.

Gage Butler's discovery of Hyperion as the "homeworld" and his revelation that the aliens were sentient was incredibly exciting, and various interested groups were already offering Taisuke Technologies vast sums to build interstellar exploration ships – that had been in use for decades had they but paid attention. Saran was one of the few who knew that the IFP had commissioned Taisuke Technologies to build a new kind of deep-space explorer spaceship, the prototype of which was now sitting – vulnerably – in the company's main space dock, awaiting completion.

Its maiden voyage would now be simple. The aliens had been sentient and had left their home galaxy in an orderly, organised fashion. Therefore the aliens had had a _plan_, a _purpose - _that could be deduced. A few days ago, Dark Angel Race Keegan had received very specific orders for his Guide. Dr Butler was to examine the alien pictographs, whatever records he could get his hands on, and look for _a flight plan_. The prototype's first mission would be to follow, and hopefully find, the aliens.

The point being that the boffins at Taisuke couldn't get on with inventing new and fun stuff to play with if they were being harassed, hindered and generally hassled by what were this era's version of neo-Nazi groups. "I will direct the attention of the LEO Commission on these groups," Saran assured Hanzai. "They have already brought unwelcome light upon themselves by attempting to discredit Dr Butler and have him replaced. Race Keegan was most upset by such disrespect towards his Guide, and I don't like it when my friends are upset."

Hanzai allowed himself a faint smile, which quickly disappeared. "The second issue is of much greater concern to me."

Saran raised his eyebrows at Hanzai's sombre tone. The Patriarch was not given to histrionics, dramatics, or I've-got-a-secret-grandstanding.

"There are rumours that an assassination attempt will be made of a member of a High House family."

Saran blinked. He stared for a long moment at the three po-faced people in front of him. Coming to power and riches during the unstable, tumultuous decades of global unrest on Earth and fractured political infighting on the colonies, the Houses – High, Lesser, Associate and Name – had retained their position due to a ruthless pragmatism. In the early days murder of a House family member, or someone acting in their official stead, or as their acknowledged representative, had resulted in spectacular massacres until the point was driven home that such would not be tolerated.

The willingness of a House to remorselessly hunt down such assassins for however long it took and however much it cost eventually got the point across. No member of a High House had died because of murder in four hundred and twelve years. The last victim had been the fourteen-year-old only daughter of High House van Zant Matriarch Isolde van Zant, shot by a group of terrorist guerrillas on a school trip, who had sneeringly decided that over two centuries of peaceful, co-operative power must have rendered the High Houses weak and indecisive. They had had only a few minutes to regret their mistake before the van Zant warships vaporised their entire planet from orbit.

So, in the civilised areas of space such as the Oligarchy, Altair Confederacy, Intergalactic Federation of Planets, etc., such a notion as assassination was universally understood to be insanity. Who would be stupid enough to murder someone loved by people with the power to incinerate worlds? However, not for a minute did Saran smile, laugh or pretend that Hanzai was joking. The Patriarch wouldn't joke about something so distasteful.

"The targets…?"

"Rumours only, but I have heard either Lord James, or yourself, or possibly both. Other rumours include William Ellison, your mother, or others. To be honest, Lord James seems to be the most likely target from what little I have been able to gather; the other potential victims seem to be later speculations that have taken a life of their own, as such things are wont to do. These rumours are like smoke. They disappear and then reappear, embellished with all sorts of nonsense."

"Hmmph." Saran leaned back in his chair; himself a target? He discounted such an idea almost immediately. He had many enemies, but none crazy or stupid enough to contemplate such lunacy against the Vicereine of Olban's favourite child. His mother would reduce this galaxy, hell the universe, to fine ash in her hunt for his killer.

What if Jim died…? Stephen would become the Body Heir, but Saran would stake his life on the fact that Stephen had no ambition to step into his elder brother's shoes in that respect. There were all of about a dozen people in the universe who knew Jim Ellison was a Dark Angel, so it was unlikely that his "real job" was the cause. However, Jim was a Dark Sentinel, an already powerful man whose abilities had just been increased exponentially now he had captured the only known Dark Guide – Blair Sandburg. Saran remembered Sandburg from the corridor with Grokk. Even though he had had no interest in Sandburg as his Guide, he had still felt the tug of power from the young man. "When…?"

"Soon – within the next week; the assassin apparently has no qualms about trying to commit the murder wherever his intended victim is. What concerns me is a persistent rumour that if the assassin fails to kill Jim then…he or she will have no problems doing so at his father's birthday celebrations."

_Ah-ah_. Saran met Hanzai's eyes; everyone in the room acutely aware of what Hanzai was _not_ saying. Murdering Jim Ellison was going to be a tough enough nut to crack under the best of circumstances, but if the killer had no fear of trying to pursue his prey in no less a place that the Ellison family's own ziggurat on Eden, some ugly conclusions had to be drawn. The ancient phrase used by British police - "_inside job"_ – being the major and most unpalatable one.

The heads of Houses, indeed, most planetary or system rulers, nowadays operated a three-to-six person "command structure" gradually developed during those long gone days of assassinations and socio-political instability. Top of the tree was the Matriarch/Patriarch, then their Body Heir, the Matriarch/Patriarch's Advocate, equal in rank to the Body Heir, "The Third of House…", appropriately third in rank, plus the Consort and sometimes one or two other people.

The system was designed so that if one or more of the command structure was suddenly incapacitated or killed, someone else could simply step straight in and carry on as normal, as if nothing had happened. Thus, if William, James and Stephen Ellison collapsed dead at the same moment, the Ellison Advocate would calmly step into the breech, or William Ellison's designated Third of House Ellison, or his Consort, Ehlan of Lesser House Van den Gaerde, or whoever was left standing. For William Ellison's birthday party for example, the Patriarch, Ehlan, his Body Heir Jim and The Third – Stephen Ellison – would all be present, while the Ellison Advocate and the other two in the command structure would have been sent off-world, each to a different, widely separated destination from the other two. The party's attendees would do exactly the same within their own command structures before arriving.

Eden was the second most secure planet in the Inhabited Galaxies, and you could probably paper several city blocks with the list of dignitaries and VIPs attending William Ellison's birthday party, meaning that security at the Ellison Ziggurat would be so far beyond paranoid they didn't have a word invented to describe it yet. Assuming that the would-be killer was confident about being able to murder – or attempt to murder – Jim Ellison right inside his own family's heavily secured ziggurat meant that the assassin was either totally crazy or so deep inside the Oligarchy's social structure that he or she was practically part of the furniture.

Saran's stomach flipped over unpleasantly. The thought that someone he _trusted, _someone he thought of as a friend, or a family member, could be smiling to his face while planning such a terrible thing was not something he could view with equanimity. Such a betrayal was beyond Saran. He saw the same dark clouds in the eyes of the three people sat across from him, and knew that they were already placed in the invidious position he now found himself in - of looking at people he cared about with suspicion.

"I – "

Saran's words were lost to posterity as with a soft "_ping!_" the discreet "back door" to his office slid back, and a small figure stepped inside. The four people already within stared in absolute astonishment at the figure, whose appearance was one of those fabulous occurrences that would be dismissed as too incredible in a work of fiction but which happen every day in real life. It was a child, a pre-adolescent boy wearing glasses and bearing in front of him a large potted shrub.

"_Senji!_" Patriarch Taisuke and his family rose to their feet, as did Saran, still too astonished to speak.

Moving the pot to one side, the boy finally looked through his spectacles at the inhabitants of the room and gave a deep bow, speaking flawlessly Japanese. "My most humble apologies, Commissioner. I have come to the wrong room." He bowed again and made to withdraw.

Trying to shake off the feeling he was in some bizarre dream, Saran forestalled him. "Whom are you trying to locate, Sir Taisuke?" He felt rather than saw the way the other three started at the formal title for the male child of a Patriarch.

The practice of styling all the sons of a High House "Sir" and the daughters "Dame", with the Body Heir being accorded the title or Lord or Lady, originated with the oh-so British High House Stantley, and the anachronism had remained. Senji Taisuke was the youngest of Hanzai and Keiko's children and of all of them, Saran and indeed the average man on the street could have told you exactly when his seventh birthday would be, for a very unpleasant reason.

GenHome had been Federation's pre-eminent foetal clinic, the place where the great and good came to design their progeny and place the blastocysts in the Uterine Replicators. What nobody knew six years and ten months ago was that one of the genetic lab technicians was a compulsive gambler heavily in debt to the sort of people who broke bones and removed bodily appendages without anaesthetic when they were not paid their dues. Though doing most of the _basic_ genetic modifications outlined, that particular technician had instead pocketed the money for many of the more complex, and therefore lucrative, DNA modifications.

The scandal when the batch of defective foetuses had been "born" had rocked IFP society to its foundations. While few could afford the "totally designed" children of the very rich, all embryos on IFP ruled worlds had such things as myopia, asthma, Spina Bifida, Down's Syndrome, dyslexia, dyspraxia, schizophrenia and a whole host of other problems removed from their genome prior to placement in the URs.

Saran had not long been Commissioner of the LEO when the situation erupted in a media blast of outrage and shock. The guilty technician had committed suicide and so there was nobody left to savage and heap with blame. Saran remembered one of his first "official" meetings as Commissioner. It was how his friendship with Race and Jim, previously "nodding acquaintances", had, incongruously, begun; facing a very angry James Ellison and several other Dark Angel Sentinels, including Race Keegan, after certain "interested" parties in the IFP and Oligarchy unsubtly suggested that the Dark Angels could be used to kill the imperfect infants under the guise of them being "too impaired" to survive, despite the fact that such an excuse would hardly be plausible for the entire batch of forty-eight babies. Sentinels were _protectors_ of the tribe; neither they nor their non-Sentinel Dark Angel colleagues took kindly to the idea of killing children.

The defective children had finally been placed in a residential school on Federation, paid for by GenHome. Senji Taisuke had "escaped" with only myopia and mild asthma. Were it not for the glasses, he would look no different from Keiko and Hanzai's normal children.

"I was seeking Detective Logan. I believed that he was your Guide."

He _is_ my Guide_ -_ well, not Bonded Guide…yet…if he were my Bonded Guide, of course he would be _here_, with _me,_ but, well – Saran broke off his internal soliloquy as he realised his brain was starting to hurt. "Det- Trey Logan works in the Repository," he simply stated, determinedly not looking at Hanzai, Keiko or Hamiko. _He_ was the Sentinel here and if it had pleased him to have his Guide work as…as…as a unicyclist in a circus, it was _nobody else's business!_

Hanzai spoke, finally seeming to find his voice as he looked at the child he had seen once for about a minute and a half as the defective infant and his peers were removed from the Uterine Replicator and away from the many distraught parents. "That's a Hybrid Sapphire Tea Rose."

Senji blinked and bowed. "Yes, Patriarch. It is a gift for –"

" - _My_ Guide?" Saran couldn't help the bit of snap that went into his interjection. It came straight from the bit of his brain hardwired into his basic instincts and bypassed the controls on his mouth.

Senji and his forty-seven "batch mates" might not be physically flawless, but the technician had left their sky-high IQs intact. He knew a warning bell when he heard one. Bowing exquisitely low in a perfectly executed genuflection of total subservience, he explained, "I and my friends are deeply in the debt of…_Your Guide_, Sentinel. _Your Guide_ saved us from…great unpleasantness. _Your Guide_ has admired my humble efforts at rose cultivation, so I thought he might like a token of our appreciation."

Saran kept his face bland, but winced inwardly at Senji's carefully placed word emphasis and overt deference. Good grief, this child was no threat to his possession of his Guide. _Way to go, Saran, now you know why Trey looks at you like you eat babies for breakfast_. He pasted a look of enquiry on his face. "How did Trey help you?"

Under other circumstances, he would have laughed at the little boy's "caught between a rock and a hard place" expression as the child realised that whatever Trey had done had not even been known about – never mind sanctioned by – his Sentinel. Taking a deep breath, Senji explained, "Det – Trey customarily eats his lunch in the public gardens of the school. I have managed to get a few of my flowers to take root outside of the nurseries, and he…likes them. One day, he…noticed a bruise on my arm…"

"Someone hurt you, Senji?" Keiko's tone was quiet, she was the most self-effacing of all the High House Consorts, but one look at her eyes brought Saran immediately to mind of Samurai and warrior-Emperors. There were centuries worth of Imperial Steel glittering there.

Senji bowed towards his mother. "Our school had a caretaker who was…not nice. He attempted to…" Senji made a vague gesture, the too adult words incongruous when spoken by a six-year-old boy. "…hurt some of the girls. Some of us boys tried to fight back, but he hit us with a broom. He said that he could do what he liked as nobody would care about…a bunch of defectives." There was a tiny, very uncomfortable silence. "I told Trey what was happening…he said he would fix it." Senji paused again and stared fixedly at the small shrub he still clasped. "He used to be a detective, helping children like us…his eyes were frightening." For an instant, Senji looked every inch a small boy, not an adult in a too-small frame.

"Where is the caretaker?" Hanzai's tone was the soft whisper of an approaching maelstrom.

Senji raised his head and regarded his father through the circular metal rims of his spectacles, his eyes enigmatic. "One day he didn't come to work. He just…disappeared."

There was a momentary pause, and then Saran casually dropped his pen on his desk. "How mysterious. Let us take you to where Trey is and you can give him his present."

Relief flashed across the child's face as it became clear that the caretaker's "disappearance" would not be investigated by the LEO Commission any time soon.

Nobody spoke as Saran's personal elevator shot downwards; Saran saw Senji cast oblique sidelong glances at the three adults standing protectively around him – mother, father, sister. Senji had never seen, nor interacted with, his biological family. Like the other forty-seven families, the Taisuke family had provided the very best of care – from a distance – while trying to pretend the boy did not exist. Saran got the feeling that situation was about to change as Keiko made a tentative statement about her noted horticulturist mother. Keiko's father, the previous Emperor, had been devastated when his queen died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage and now the Imperial Family allowed the public to visit the late Empress's famed "Sun Garden". Senji responded cordially if cautiously, describing his attempts to breed the notoriously delicate Hybrid Rose strains, clearly having his late grandmother's green thumb.

The Repository was as busy as ever, but Saran led his small group unerringly towards a familiar relaxed heartbeat and a unique, spicy citrus scent that he alone could smell as clearly as if it were cologne. Trey was perched at a workstation, absently sipping coffee that Saran's senses told him was lukewarm. He dialled "up" slightly and did a quick scan – low electrolytes. Logan hadn't eaten since breakfast – _note to self, order him to eat elevenses._

Catching a flash of colour, Trey turned his head, blinking in surprise at the image of a small boy holding a large plant standing directly in front of him. Unaware of the presence of Senji's entourage, Trey's face broke into a broad, genuine smile that passed "Go" at light speed and zipped straight long the neurons into those cells containing Saran's primitive possessive instincts, all those mental files with labels marked "_Trey – Mine, Guide – Mine, Everything about Logan – Mine"_.

Jealousy growled within Saran as the child was treated to a look of affection never accorded the Sentinel. Saran's nostrils flared briefly as he fought the impulse to push himself between the boy and his Guide. It would be the work of a moment to force Trey to his knees on the floor and make him acknowledge who he belonged to, before Saran claimed him right here…

_Oh for pity's sake! _Saran mentally castigated himself. _Why not go the whole hog and started charging about in furs and waving a club going "Me Tarzan You Jane" while you're at it Van den Mikhail? I am the LEO High Commissioner, not some Neanderthal who's just had a shiny toy stolen off him._

Firmly clamping down on his baser side, Saran's focussed on the situation as his intellect managed to shove itself centre stage again and point out how unlikely it was that High Imperial Japanese – another of the Earth Pure Tongues - would have been on the basic "survivalist" school curriculum taught to the orphaned son of asteroid miners out on the Frontier Worlds. Along with Earth French, Trey Logan was now demonstrably fluent in two languages normally only taught in elite schools or during diplomacy training.

Trey's eyes widened as he looked at the spindly shrub with it's dark emerald green leaves, small burgundy thorns and deep, deep, sapphire-hued blooms. He inclined his head towards Senji deeply. "I'm deeply honoured by your gift, Senji…but…my Sentinel…"

"Has no problem with it," Saran cut in more coldly than he expected upon finding himself suddenly cast as the Wicked Stepmother, experiencing a twinge of satisfaction as Trey jumped in surprise.

Finally noticing the people behind the child, Trey flushed and immediately gave a respectful bow to the foursome, this time stuttering slightly as he spoke the formal Japanese greetings.

Hanzai reply was smooth and soothing. "My family is grateful for your…decisive…action in protecting our son."

Another minute or so of polite bowing and cautious exchanges ended with Hanzai, Keiko and Hamiko taking Senji for a late lunch, leaving Saran and Trey in the Repository.

Saran rolled his eyes as Trey stood stiffly with all the animation of a store mannequin, clasping the Hybrid Tea Rose between his hands in what could quite possibly be an actual death grip. "It won't bite," he informed Logan in exasperation.

For the first time ever, Trey retorted rather than retreated, his tone laced with genuine irritation. "It's _Hybrid Tea Rose!_ Do you realise how much these things _are worth?"_

Saran did – far too much to be left hanging around the Repository for the remainder of the day. "Take it home and…see…to it," the horticulturally challenged Sentinel ordered finally, and watched with some faint amusement as Trey walked gingerly away with the same care as a man trying to walk on eggshell.

**LEO Commissioner's Residence, The Capitol, Federation, a few days later…**

Saran sat at his private desk, in his private study, in the Commissioner's private residence. Privacy was good. That way nobody could see him when he started to bash his head against the smooth surface!

Saran groaned aloud. He was the favourite son of his mother. He was tall. He was handsome. He was…what had he heard some ladies say?…ah yes, his physique was _buff_. His IQ was in orbit. He was so rich his bank accounts read like binary code. He was powerful. He was articulate. He was charismatic. He was witty. He was LEO High Commissioner, one of the most powerful people in the IFP up to and including the President. He was…

_Jealous of a potted plant._

Saran buried his head in his arms to the extent he was virtually kissing the desk's top and groaned again. He'd ordered Trey to "see to" the damned shrub, not fall in_ love_ with it! Every morning they went to work at the Commissioner's Palace, every night they came home to the Commissioner's Residence and Trey absconded to be with his plant. He talked to it. He played _music_ to it – hell, he probably even read it poetry! He measured soil acidity with one little white stick. He measured soil alkalinity with another little white stick. He measured water retention, causing Saran to swallow the impulse to enquire whether the damn thing was female. He had placed the thing on every windowsill of his suite to get the best sunlight before deciding his bedroom was the optimum position for it to get some rays. He clipped the thorns. He polished the leaves. He primped the petals.

_Enough!_ Saran sat upright. He had an IQ off the charts and he was sat here trying to send telepathic instructions for spontaneous combustion towards a bit of flora, simply because some caveman part of his hindbrain wanted the Guide to adore only him. This was going to stop right now! Saran Van den Mikhail was in charge of his instincts, not the other way around!

Saran's eyes narrowed grimly. This whole ridiculous debacle had descended quite far enough into farce, thank you very much. He had had it with the preceding weeks of tiptoeing, pussyfooting, shilly-shallying, dilly-dallying, touchy-feely drivel. Right this instant he was going to march upstairs, he was going take Logan by the scruff of his scrawny neck and he was going to show him _exactly_ who he belonged to in Full Bonding detail, and only if Trey Logan really pleased him he might, _might,_ be merciful enough _not_ to fling the plant out the window and into the middle of next week! And _tomorrow,_ Saran would return to his backlog of work. "Seven-fourteen days of post-Bonding isolation are necessary" could go hang – utter psychobabble. It was simply a matter of willpower. He controlled his hormones; his hormones would not control him!

Saran stood up, having worked himself up into a full self-righteous snit, unaware of the aura of lethal menace he projected around him so intensely it was almost visible. Unseen in the corner, there faintly formed the ghostly, diaphanous image of a snow-leopard, unnaturally large, whose face bore a distinct expression of smug "finally it's about time" satisfaction as it flexed it's paw over it's pinned prey, a very small, completely see-through "miniature Jaguar" type feline that, after careful examination, could be recognised as an African Black-footed Wildcat, virtually extinct, and the smallest species of Earth's feral cats…

_Ping! Ping!_

Saran came close to actually starting in surprise. He looked at the rest light flashing on his desk surface for a moment almost reluctantly as deeper instincts continued to shove at his cerebellum with suggestions he go and take what was his.

Saran shoved those urgings down firmly. "The Sentinel" was only part of his psyche and was something that he fully controlled and used to his advantage; he was not at the mercy of his brain chemistry. Ignoring the nasty inner voice that had suddenly started to snigger derisively, Saran sharply pressed the light that caused a certain vidlink to pop up out of the desk. The desk was largely a computer, and had many video and audio comlinks. This particular vidlink was a very secret, very secure addition to the desk and would be removed when Saran left office or died – the position of LEO High Commissioner could be a life position if the incumbent chose. Each LEO Commissioner had been "_aware"_ of the Dark Angels, however, their dealings with the "last line of defence" organisation had varied from arctic to cordial depending on the incumbent.

Thanks to Saran's tight friendship with Race Keegan and James Ellison, plus his characteristic realistic pragmatism, he enjoyed a much warmer than usual accord with the Dark Angels, knowing that in an imperfect universe, people like the Dark Angels were more than a necessary evil who those wearing mental rose-tinted spectacles tried to expose and destroy. Consequently, Saran was kept much more "in the loop" than some of his predecessors, since the Dark Angels knew he would give them his full support as long as they could back up their assertions or course of action with solid facts. This vidlink, installed one afternoon by polite strangers that Singh and the other staff prudently appeared not to see, was part of that closer communications loop.

Thanks to the wonders of modern bio-cyber technology, Jim's image was projected across the vast interstellar distances in crystal clear perfection, allowing Saran to easily see the cold intent below the grim humour on the other man's face. "I'm about to execute a little idea I have regarding these assassination rumours about me." Jim took it as read that Saran was fully aware of the situation. "Wanna play?"

"Need you ask? You're convinced that you are the real target?" Saran perched one butt cheek on the edge of the desk, displaying a relaxation he showed only to his intimates.

Jim nodded. "Traced back some of the stories. Most of the other potential victims were a result of the Chinese Whisper effect, someone adding a bit to polish the rumour he or she heard and passing it on to someone else who did the same. No way in hell am I waiting for this guy to try doing a Molnar Station at my father's birthday party, so I've decided to assume he or she is enough of a fruit-loop to fall for the Judas Goat With Attitude routine."

Saran nodded in agreement. Jim acting the full-on, arrogant conceited Body Heir routine: "I am a demigod, I needn't take any precautions you pathetic plebeians", some place where he was nice and vulnerable to nasty attentions should be just what was needed to push this wacko over the edge into total Gagaville and hopefully make him or her do something rash so they could be pounced on. "Where are we putting on this show?"

"Halfway Station."

Saran smiled, not nicely. "Don't start the party without me." With a finger he pressed the key to make the vidlink sink back into the desk and then glanced up at the ceiling almost as if he could see right through the upper floors to his Guide; the feral smile that curved his lips widened.

Trey whirled around so fast he almost scorched a hole in the carpet as the connecting door to his bedroom was thrown open with considerable energy and Saran stalked in, his face harsh. The larger man approached him with a stride that was unnervingly predatory, his eyes glittering oddly as they fixed on Trey.

"Shower and pack a bag. We leave for Halfway Station in thirty minutes," Saran ordered in a clipped tone. "We're going to stop this lunatic before he tries to take out Jim at his father's birthday party."

Trey nodded, his eyes wide. The hairs on his arms prickled as momentarily Saran's so-icy-they-were-nearly-silver eyes seemed to burn so fiercely they seared through him. For an instant Saran loomed too close inside Trey's personal space, and the air was thick with dangerous intent; Saran's gaze dropped to Trey's throat and his lips parted very slightly, the tip of his tongue brushing his top lip as he watched the visibly pounding pulse. From somewhere deep inside Saran somehow brought it back from the brink and he turned on his heel, leaving as abruptly as he entered.

Trey swallowed heavily and felt his gut muscles clench tightly. He had a sudden certainty that he had come very, very close to being a Sentinel Smorgasbord. Firmly slamming the mental door as his nightmares stirred and gibbered, reaching out with searing skeletal fingers from his memory, Trey hurried into the shower, and then packed essentially but lightly with the ease of long practice. A full five minutes before the allotted time ran out he was down in the grand lobby, smiling nervously at Singh as the Commissioner's private shuttle approached the Residence.

Halfway Station, a few hours after that… 

The Dark Guide was angry. Not throwing heavy crockery angry or impugning the virtue of your mother/other female relatives angry, but icily, internally angry, a tightly controlled but nevertheless very real rage.

This was one of the occasions when Blair Sandburg was in full accord with his Dark Guide persona. Unlike many Sentinels, including Jim, and Guides too, Blair had always had more of an ability to separate rationally detached, scientific "Blair Sandburg" from the more instinctive, emotionally responsive "Dark Guide". This ability to "disassociate", almost but not quite verging on Multiple Personality Disorder, had been vital in keeping him sane during the time when he was tortured and brutalised as Alexandra Barnes' slave.

Now however, both Blair Sandburg and Dark Guide were in full on "search and destroy" mode, provoked to seething ire over the mere idea that any creature would dare, would actually _dare_ to threaten Jim Ellison!

This opulent, gloriously appointed suite of marble and crystal, fur and silk in Halfway's most exclusive hotel could have been a dirt-floor shack for all the attention Blair gave it as he prowled. When they found this scumbag that even thought about hurting Jim, Blair was going to crush his throat with his own fingers, then he was going to –

"Miss me?" The amused voice was a deep rumble as Jim came into the suite, casually sending a foot behind him to kick shut the door, knowing it would autolock.

With a growl, Blair came right up to him and hugged him tightly, rubbing his face into Jim's throat as he expanded his empathic abilities to check that Jim was safe. Ignoring the luxurious décor, Jim scooped him up, clasping the smaller man to his torso and lifting slightly so Blair's feet left the floor before moving a few steps and sprawling carelessly on a priceless French Louis XIV _chaise longue. _Jim hitched up the couch slightly, resting his back against it with Blair cuddled up against him like a child seeking comfort. Carefully Jim lightly massaged the tense muscles of Blair's back, knowing his Guide was angry on his behalf and frightened for him, for all Jim's lethal abilities as a Dark Angel, but did not attempt to initiate any deeper bonding than the lighter touches.

Blair's throat was already a blue/black/yellow/purple/red mottled mess that made it look as if someone had tried to throttle him. Each bruise was courtesy of an enthusiastic Dark Sentinel who, lacking the common sense of James Ellison, would eagerly Bond as many times as he could subdue his Dark Guide, and worry for Jim's safety had rendered the Dark Guide too submissive. Just one of the many issues Jim and Blair were working through.

On one level, the assassination threat situation had helped speed up the process of more profound bonding, the deep emotional rapport a Sentinel and Guide built up over time, bringing to light problems that would have stayed hidden longer under other circumstances. Since Bonding with Jim Ellison, Blair was gradually working to reintegrate the two vastly disparate sides of his personality – the frantically inconspicuous, ordinary "Mr Nobody" Blair Sandburg and the powerful impulses of Dark Guide.

Helped by Dark Angel counsellors and the very discreet therapists eagerly supplied by William Ellison, there had still been difficulties as the pacifist, free-thinking side of Blair tried to mesh with the often homicidal, definitely opinionated Dark Guide side. The already pre-existing prelidiction toward internal conflict only aggravated the nightmares and psychological trauma from being the victim of long term torture, rape and mental abuse by the only other Dark Sentinel to exist in modern times, Alexandra Barnes.

Now accepted by the inner circle of Cascade PD's Major Crime Unit, Jim's "cover" life as a Lieutenant Detective Ellison had been very satisfying. Since he owned the entire block and had oodles of cash, it had been the work of moments for Jim to get the guy in the apartment below the loft to vacate towards warmer climes. Then Jim had had a spiral staircase put in and turned the whole thing into a two-level apartment. His and Blair's ferocious Bonding right here on Halfway had found equilibrium as they worked alongside and with each other in their "normal" lives.

Jim and Blair had become attuned to each other intellectually and emotionally besides chemically and empathically as they did normal, everyday things like buying groceries and decorating their home. There had been bickering and good-natured laughter as Blair decried Jim's "limited" décor of fishing, baseball and contact sport memorabilia plus his "anal retentive" neat freak approach in the original loft, while Jim had retorted by taking issue with the "weird and way ugly" tribal stuff adorning Blair's walls downstairs, plus the general disarray that made the place look like "several tornadoes fought to the death in here".

When the first whispers of someone planning to kill Jim had come through they had been treated with incredulous scorn due such insanity, but the rumours were too persistent to be easily ignored, and too specific in their assertion that the killer could strike at Jim even in the very heart of the Oligarchy. That someone he knew personally could be a killer had not sat well with Jim, and when some assholes began to speculate on whether the "unstable" Dark Guide would be the culprit, well…murder had been very close to being done in the precinct.

To say that Blair had been distraught was an understatement. Jim had found him one afternoon in Hunter's office, no less, after inadvertently hearing some pretty vicious gossiping while in the restroom. Suddenly knowing his Guide was acutely distressed, Jim had left Simon's office abruptly with the big Captain close behind him, and he had been far from happy to find his Guide in the office of Bondless Sentinel Ellison Vincent Hunter, who had his arm round Blair's shoulders. Violence was averted – at least temporarily – when Blair threw himself into Jim's embrace shaking like a leaf in an autumn gale. Retreating to the loft, Jim had finally got the tangled story from Blair, who could talk solidly for at least an hour seemingly without needing to replenish oxygen, before the anthropologist begged Jim to believe that he would never, ever, try to hurt Jim.

Jim had gathered him up, soothing, calming, even as part of his brain worked on the problem of where to dispose of the corpses of those that had upset his Guide. Blair had only killed Alex Barnes after persistent, long-term abuse of the worse kind, and still went on guilt trips about it. The idea that he would willingly or knowingly harm Jim, with whom he had a positive relationship, was utterly ludicrous! Jim had soothed and Blair had calmed down, externally at least. That night, an almost intangibly faint scent of blood roused Jim from slumber. It was so negligible as to be like that caused by a mere razor's nick or scrape. Nevertheless, it was his Guide's blood. Having already become accustomed to Blair's frequent albeit entirely understandable nightmares, Jim had been subconsciously hyper alert since retiring for the night.

Already uneasy with the idea that Blair was far less sanguine that he'd earlier appeared, and again having been abruptly introduced to Blair's penchant for severe anxiety attacks, Jim had silently slipped downstairs. The shallow, thin white scars on Blair's forearms that had been subconsciously nagging at Jim since their wild Full Bonding were explained completely as his Sentinel sight cleaved the darkness to see Blair deliberately press a razor blade against his skin again. The Dark Sentinel had reacted immediately to the threat and secured the Guide so he couldn't harm himself, then Jim Ellison had gone ballistic. Essentially Blair was punishing himself for causing "all this trouble" to Jim.

There were more counselling sessions, at which Jim insisted on being present, before Blair began to make his way back to full mental health. The therapists had made a point with each session to take Jim to one side and emphasise the need for him to be both verbally reassuring and physically tactile with his Guide so as to reinforce Blair's fragile feelings of "worthiness" in being the Dark Guide. Each of the therapists had also made the point that Blair's actually reasonable mental stability was nothing short of miraculous. Considering what Blair had suffered physically, mentally and emotionally with Alex Barnes, it was nothing short of amazing that he wasn't an out and out basket case, or at the very least seriously addicted to drugs/alcohol. Zero self-esteem, panic attacks, a relatively minor dependency on sleeping medication and a tendency towards self-harm were, Jim was sternly assured, actually a very small price he was paying in getting his Dark Guide.

However that situation had meant that when Jim first came up with his plan to use himself as bait on Halfway Station to try and draw out the assassin to do something stupid, his tentative suggestions that Blair stay with Simon – i.e., safe – on Earth perished almost instantly. Blair had looked at him with big, devastated eyes that clearly telegraphed his belief that Jim wanted him to stay behind because he thought there was some basis to the slanders and didn't trust Blair. With nightmare images of a left-behind Blair fatally taking a razorblade to his wrists instead of just his arms, Jim had nixed that plan almost instantly. Since then however, Blair had displayed nothing but anger at the fact anyone would dare try to hurt Jim and a disconcerting Dark Guide bloodlust to eviscerate the culprit, which made Jim suspect that he had fallen for a bit of puppy-dog-eyes manipulation.

"Everything okay?" Blair asked finally, sitting up and away from Jim, though only by inches, on the end of the couch.

"Set. Race and Gage should be arriving tomorrow." Jim regretted the loss of contact, but knew it was for the best. His Dark Sentinel side had been whispering persistent, too tempting suggestions of how he could twist his body just a little bit _that_ way and pin his Guide down to be claimed.

Jim's working theory, which he sincerely hoped to be true, was that the "Murderer Presumptive" as Blair christened the would-be assassin was seriously mentally deranged. At least so loony he could be pushed into a stupid pre-emptive strike if Jim acted arrogantly unconcerned enough, which was why they were here – Race/Gage, Saran/Trey and Jim/Blair – like sitting ducks. Ostensibly, Jim was meeting his two closest Oligarchy friends to "discuss" the forthcoming rapprochement with his father and half-brother Hunter. With three prime targets sitting large as life in some exposed café on the Promenade, Jim could only hope that the "MP" would be lazy enough to want an easy target and make the mistake of grabbing at the gift horse.

"Do you think it'll work?" Blair asked, getting up and going into the suite's spacious and space age kitchen, opening the Chill Cabinet. He smiled in pleasure at the bowls of diced fruit on the bed of ice, freshly prepared daily by the hotel's attentive staff with a Sentinel's sensitive and exacting palate in mind. Since joining Cascade PD, Jim had been far too happy to limit his diet to the "Cops Four Basic Food Groups" – sugar, salt, grease and caffeine.

Taking one out, he brought it to Jim who took it and began to pop sweet juicy pieces into his mouth. "Actually, I really do think it's got a ninety-percent plus chance of working," Jim commented after swallowing a chunk of melon, "but I'm definitely hoping so. I will _not_ have this whacko turning my dad's party into Molnar Station!"

Blair laid a hand on one tense bicep, feeling the bigger man's muscles clench and then slowly relax under his fingers. Throughout history, the "solitary psycho" had always been more difficult to bring down than larger criminal or terrorist organisations – the Lone Gunman, Unabomber, serial killing Dr Harold Shipman, Gregory Pleat, the list went on, most notoriously of all to Henry Rothman. Rothman had placed a plasma bomb directly under the main rotunda of Molnar Space Station, which had detonated at the height of the lunch/shopping period. Tearing a gaping hole in the Station's outer hull, the blast had resulted in 27,232 dead men, women and children in under five minutes. Less than a hundred people had survived the atrocity, those in the farthermost reaches of the station who had had vital seconds to seal themselves off from the depressurised areas. Blair knew that the idea of one inconspicuous person being able to slip a plasma or neutron bomb into a vase at the Ellison Ziggurat and then just walk away while over a thousand people died horribly was giving Jim nightly bad dreams that his black ops profession embellished in gruesome Technicolor and digital sound.

Jim relaxed slowly as he breathed in Blair's unique scent and finished off the bowl of fruit, wondering how far he would get in persuading Blair to order steak not chicken or fish from room service. Jim had nothing against herbal tea and poultry, but a man needed juicy medium red meat.

Their mental connection enabled him to sense Blair's sudden suspicion of his smile and he looked up to find Blair giving him his best schoolteacher look through his spectacles. However, the combination of tousled hair and gentle smile made him look much more towards cute than stern. "What're you up to, Jim?" Blair tried to maintain the firm "Guide in charge" tone.

Jim smirked at him. "Just thinking about a return visit to the Arboretum when this is over." He laughed as Blair blushed a rosy hue and confessed, "Actually I was thinking about dinner. Two smothered steaks with baked potato, okay?" He picked up the internal comlink.

Blair, still caught up in memories of the Arboretum, nodded automatically and then narrowed his eyes as what Jim said registered. "Wait a minute, you've been stuffing yourself with Wonderburger all week –"

"You said a Sentinel needs a higher calorie intake," Jim reminded him righteously. "Besides I need a steak to take my mind of what I'd really like."

"What?" Blair asked. As long as it wasn't another Ultimate Wonderburger Meal, he'd consider it.

"You, Guide." Jim allowed a growl to creep into his voice and grinned again when Blair blushed even more furiously than before. Chuckling aloud, Jim picked up the comlink again and resolutely ignored the voice in his head that was arguing how Blair's bruised throat wasn't that bad and why not devour the steak and then his Guide too? Damn, nobility was taxing.

"…Yeah, Saran and Trey Logan are due here in the next 36 hours." Race Keegan leaned back against the headboard of the massive, silk covered bed in his own opulent suite as he spoke to Jim Ellison via the Dark Angels secure comlink, unaware of how his focussed attention made him seem even more "Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes" looking. "Then we can get this "wandering around with figurative bullseyes on our backs" show on the road. Yep…uh-uh…see ya. " Race ended the call and turned his attention back to the massive vid screen that had lowered from the ceiling on command and which was now in danger of his Guide throwing peanuts at it in disgust.

Gage's peculiar reddish-hazel coloured eyes had darkened to almost a dark green-black in disgust as he glared at the membrane thin, crystalline clear screen – or rather the game being played out thereon. As humanity spread out from Earth, many sports including Soccer, American Football, Rugby, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Boxing, Wrestling and so forth had found new and lucrative audiences amongst the stars. Race Keegan discovered his Guide was a fanatical Canadian Ice Hockey fan and found himself drawn into the game as well. Of course, his Guide was always more fun to watch especially when Gage got really into the game and started arguing with the oblivious referee, insulting the opposing players, or ranting at the screen. As a precaution, Race plucked the bowl of snacks from where it nestled between them as they sprawled out side by side on a bed so massive it needed a telescope to see one side from the other and placed it on the bedside cabinet.

"Everything in place?" Gage enquired lazily, evincing no qualm about the prospect of parking his butt in the firing line of a homicidal maniac.

But then Gage was used to danger. Race's hairs still stood to attention at the way his Guide could go from mentally incisive to mentally vacant when he got wrapped up in some exciting – to him - new discovery. That was the point when Gage would recklessly take the risk of crawling inside structurally unsound stone temples weighing many tonnes, or venture inside war zones or across hazardous Frontier Worlds for _artefacts, _usually merely dirty, damaged fragments of rock. "Yep." Race stretched himself. The trip to Halfway Station had been tiring and longer than normal due to a lot of traffic at one of the Stargate points. "After Saran and Trey arrive, the six of us are going to accidentally meet up on The Promenade and then go to lunch at the Café Armand. Hopefully the Murderer Presumptive, as Blair calls him, will decide to take advantage of a golden opportunity. Hunter and the Dark Angels are already discreetly entering the station courtesy of Saran's "Contaminated Bays". The Promenade will be knee deep in them by the time we're eating lunch."

Gage raised an eyebrow. "I thought Jim and his brother didn't get on, at least not enough for Hunter to risk sensory overload by coming to Halfway when he's a Bondless Sentinel?"

Race shrugged, a Bondless Sentinel being someone he could not view with equanimity. "Blair's been working some of that empathic voodoo on the pair of them, backed up by Bill Ellison himself. The Patriarch has been dying to connect with Jim and Hunter for years and he's not going to miss the opportunity Jim's Bonding with Blair has given him to build some bridges."

Gage nodded, accepting as fact Race Keegan's assessment of the inner workings of one of the Oligarchy High Houses. He was interested in Race's social background both as his Guide and also scientifically as archaeology and anthropology overlapped; Gage's chats with Blair had left him grinning as the anthropologist in Blair took over completely in the face of his opportunity to study the social structure of the Oligarchy in depth. Sandburg still bounced with excitement and waved his hands about like a startled chicken trying to take flight when he got hot under the collar about some new anthropological idea he'd had.

"Hunter had decided to come in with the last group of DAs and leave immediately after we've taken down the MP and the situation is secure – he knows how antsy he makes Bonded Sentinels," Race carried on.

"What if the MP _doesn't_ try to take Jim out from close range or as a sniper?" Gage commented.

"We'll have to think on our feet," admitted Race, "but we've done everything possible to leave only those two options open. We can't cover every contingency." His expression clearly said he would have liked to.

Just like the six men's "accidental" meeting, the lunch at the Café Armand would be a "spur of the moment" thing, giving the MP – hopefully keeping Jim under surveillance – no chance to plant a bomb or other remote controlled cause of mayhem. Exclusive and extortionately expensive, Café Armand had been chosen for three reasons: first, the food was hand prepared in sight of the diners, ensuring the MP could not somehow slip poison into the food or drink, secondly it's broad balcony overlooking The Promenade, ideal for a sniper shot, and thirdly for the broad elevated sidewalk that allowed shoppers and celebrity spotters to walk past and gawk at the elegant and famous dining, ideal for allowing the MP to sneak up close and try a shot from a hand held firearm.

Of course Jim, indeed all six men, would be wearing Black Widow Spider Silk to protect their torsos. Unless the MP was a professional killer, in which case he would not fall for this trap, it was unlikely he would try for a headshot either by sniper rifle or close up firearm. For an amateur, it was simply too difficult to kill or sufficiently disable the target when aiming at such a small area of the body, particularly if the victim wasn't stationary.

Jim intended to fidget a lot.

"There's no chance he'll spot the Dark Angel snipers?" Gage pressed, his protective instincts towards his Sentinel having been on full alert for several days. He wasn't entirely enthralled with the plan, but the notion of just Saran and Jim meeting up on Halfway was too far out there for even the crazy killer to swallow. So interstellar playboy Race Keegan had been added to the mix to allay suspicions, and of course Gage's best friend was former detective Trey Logan, Saran's Guide. Nice and neat. _Yeah, right_.

"Nope," Race reassured. "We got our top men out there. The Hellhound even offered his sniper before we could ask. Somehow I don't think Donnelly has integrated well with the Hellhound," he snickered.

Gage grimaced, having met the Dark Angel known by the unkind sobriquet "Hellhound". It suited Chris Larabee all to well; Gage had recoiled from the roiling, boiling emotions seething inside the outwardly, coldly savage Dark Angel, a venomous tongued alcoholic who dressed in solid black and whose psychotic temper was legendary. Larabee was also a Bondless Sentinel like Hunter, but retained none of the Internal Affairs Captain's redeeming humanity. Fortunately, the guy's aversion to the prospect of Bonding with a Guide was almost pathological, meaning he posed little threat to empaths.

Allowing himself to relax, Gage quipped, "Yeah, well I hope this visit to Halfway is better than my last trip."

Race went utterly still and turned a stricken look upon Gage. Instantly the air became almost congealed with sudden tension. Gage suddenly realised the way his words sounded. He had meant the words as a joking aside, having completely forgotten that the _last_ time he had been on Halfway Station, he had been attacked and beaten by Race, while Blair and Trey had been captured as Wild Empaths and Bonded - far from willingly – to Jim Ellison and Saran Van den Mikhail.

Making the command gesture that shut off the vid screen and had it retracting into the ceiling, Gage reached out a hand and laid it on Race's rigid forearm. "I was joking, Race. You can read my emotions; you can see I didn't mean anything by it!"

Race pulled him close, opening up the psychic link between Sentinel and Guide; Gage hugged him, sending waves of reassurances. The Sentinel had punished his Guide not so much for the deceit, though he had been angry at that, but for undertaking situations that put Gage at personal risk, and had no difficulties over giving Gage a beating that he would do again if necessary to discipline his Guide. The man Race Keegan was far less sanguine. The problem was that Race felt _guilty_ about _not_ feeling guilty.

Gage reached up a hand and gently stroked Race's hair, their close physical positions "boosting" the link so he could very easily cut through the surging and spinning whorls of distressed emotions. While the Guide accepted the discipline for his reckless actions, Gage Butler was far less tranquil. As a full-grown adult who had made his way, often alone, in some of the most dangerous and inhospitable environments the universe had to offer, his "inner self" had had quite a bit of venting to do about being spanked like a naughty child. Gage could telepathically "read" how deep, deep down Race was terrified that Gage would come to resent or outright hate Race for his empathic dependency on the Sentinel, regardless of the fact that both men were just obeying millennia of genetic imperatives.

Clasping the back of Race's head, Gage leaned backwards until he was supported by the thick bed cushions and had pulled Race down over him. "I don't hate you, Race, you know that, you can see that every time we bond!"

Race buried his face in Gage's neck, extending out brilliant flame-orange tendrils of need across the mental plane that Gage instantly met with his own soothing, grass-green hued empathic energy. The coruscating colours meshed and scintillated as the link thrummed. Like this, neither could hide anything from the other and Race calmed as he was wrapped in the empathic blanket of his Guide's emotions; he nuzzled that sensitive spot under Gage's ear and instantly Gage titled his head back allowing access to his throat. However, instead of biting to mark his Guide, Race was content to just bask in the gentle emotional warmth of the bond. Secure in their mutual devotion, the two men eventually fell asleep.

Saran strolled through Halfway's massive Promenade as if window-shopping. He was wearing plain dark-grey straight cut pants outside custom-made genuine leather boots and a tunic that gave no hint of the Black Widow Spider Silk shield underneath it. Reminiscent of an Oriental style, Saran's tunic had an all round, stiff high collar that effectively hid his Body Heir tattoo from public view. Out of "context", without the official entourage and media circus that accompanied the all-powerful LEO High Commissioner, none of the passers by were giving Saran a second glance and of course Trey's neck did not bear any giveaway tattoo, a situation Saran had finally decided to remedy immediately when they returned from this little adventure.

Saran knew he looked like just one more rich guy on a spending spree at the famous Halfway Station. However, his bland expression hid tensions that prickled deep down in his stomach and created a sort of psychic "itch" inside the base of his skull. Jim and Blair Sandburg had arrived first several days ago, and were hopefully under surveillance by Jim's would-be assassin, followed by Race and Gage Butler a few days later. The luxury liner transporting Saran and Trey had arrived late last night and, after showering and taking a short rest, Saran and Trey were ambling along waiting to "bump into" the other two.

Saran's main itch was the station itself. A general prickling unease started in Saran as the two of them left the luxury liner and it's specially shielded superstructure (for which guests were charged handsomely), increasing proportionally as obsequious Customs officials ushered them past glowering lines of waiting travellers at Passport Control. From the instant he stepped through Passport Control into Halfway Station proper, Saran remembered just why Sentinels generally, and in particular Bondless Sentinels such as he himself technically still was, avoided the place like it was a tax inspector. Dialling down his sight and hearing was actually not that much of a problem, but few people ever really understood how _powerful_ a sense _smell_ really was.

Hit by thousands of scents from all directions, Saran had dialled it down to _below_ nothing. No, actually scent wasn't so much powerful as _pervasive_. Like spilt milk, it lingered long after you could have sworn you'd scrubbed the spot into nothing more than memory. However, the instant Saran had dialled his sense of smell down in self-defence, he'd suddenly realised that he must have subconsciously been "locked" onto Trey's uniquely individual body odour for quite some time, despite both of them taking the Bonding Heat suppressants, because his Sentinel side immediately moved up a DefCon when the Guide's scent was abruptly blocked. Of course since they had not undergone Full Bonding, there was no psychic link between them, which was what a Sentinel and Guide fell back on in situations where they weren't in close physical proximity to each other, for example, if one was on a spaceship and the other miles below on the planet it was orbiting.

Another thing that was making his primitive side twitch was the fact that he could sense the presence of Bondless Sentinels with overwhelming clarity, as if each were walking around under a big neon arrow stating: THIS IS ONE. Their presence set Saran's teeth on edge. There were at least seven alone amongst the Dark Angels currently infiltrated inside The Promenade, including Captain Hunter.

Showing deft perspicacity, Vince Hunter had arrived separately from Jim, Race and Saran with a small cell of Dark Angel Hunter-Killer agents on a transport shuttle yesterday. Like Saran, Hunter was not a Dark Angel, a situation Saran knew would probably soon change for Cascade's Internal Affairs Captain. With encouragement from Blair, an only child who had always craved siblings, Hunter and his half-brother had quickly reached détente, albeit not always comfortably. Arriving from Earth to help Jim against this threat, sarcastic, grim Ellison Vincent Hunter had slipped easily into the Dark Angels' society and most importantly, the Dark Angels liked him.

There was also the issue that Hunter was reaching his late forties, the _very _outer limits of how long a Bondless Sentinel could maintain mental and emotional stability. That alone told interested parties the strength of his sensory abilities, even though he wasn't a Dark Sentinel. Most Sentinels who did not manage to bond became rapidly mentally ill by their early thirties and were complete basket cases by thirty-five. The only other Bondless Sentinel to survive to a similar age and retain sanity was the Hellhound, Christopher Larabee, who was also present and whose Bondless state grated equally against Saran's nerves. Larabee had been co-opted into the Dark Angels several years ago and Saran knew the Dark Angels would take a similar pro-active course with Hunter. If they didn't, he certainly intended to "suggest" it in his LEO Commissioner role. A powerful, trained-killing-machine Bondless Sentinel wandering around teetering on the edge of lunacy had been dangerous enough in Larabee's case, but Hunter complicated the issue even further by being the firstborn, albeit illegitimate, child of a Patriarch. The political scheming and intrigues that could be spawned by that single fact alone didn't bear thinking about.

What was most displeasing to Saran however, was again down to Trey Logan's presence. The Halfway PD had been threatened with a thousand fates worse than death if they interfered in any way with what would hopefully go down on The Promenade, or arrived "too fast" at the scene. However, a total lack of police officers present in the pickpocket and petty-crime plagued Promenade would be a red flag for anyone watching Jim who was even half way rational, so a few uniformed officers "for show" were scattered about like confetti. To Saran's irritation, Trey had walked half a step behind his shoulder, in a semi-subservient, semi-hiding way, but then Saran had seen the looks cast at Trey by his former colleagues. Some were sympathetic, as if Trey had suffered a tragedy, which made Saran bristle mentally. Others were pitying, as if Trey were some abused animal, which made Saran's lips tighten. Still others were overtly sneering, as if Trey were a figure of amusement and Saran noted how Trey's pale skin was flushed slightly. Some of the glances were almost _leering_ and Saran's hands itched to slap those faces that shot coquettish looks implying all sorts of nasty things about Saran and Trey's relationship. Unconsciously his frame grew taller as his spine went stiffer, and his already naturally forbidding expression became more so. Unknowingly he spared Trey even more discomfort for several spiteful individuals lost their "courage" as Saran's eyes became ever more icy as he walked along.

Side by side, Gage and Race were ambling leisurely along from the opposite direction and the four men "bumped into each other" with expressions of surprise. Hyper aware of Trey, Saran noted how his Guide instantly shed a bundle of tension just by laying eyes on Race Keegan's composed, self-confident Guide Gage Butler and felt a familiar surge of pique. The four men changed direction towards the Café Armand, where they "accidentally" met Jim and Blair about to go in, and decided to lunch together.

Neither Race nor Jim had disguised the tattoos denoting rank that adorned their necks. Race was too well known from the media due to his disguising "interstellar playboy" lifestyle and this was one occasion where Jim _wanted_ to be deferred to by people; if a fire fight started, their tendency to instantly obey him might save lives, besides which trying to disguise his tattoo would jar with the "Arrogant-Thinking-I'm-Invulnerable" obnoxiousness he was projecting as a lure towards the assassin.

It was Jim's tattoo that got their request for a table for six on the balcony instantly granted, with a group of lesser diners being knocked down the list as the Maitre D' personally escorted them to the table they had specifically requested. Tactfully everyone ignored the rainbow-hued state of Blair's neck; Race and Saran actually seemed to have a tinge of envy and Gage shot his Sentinel a stern, "don't even think about it" glare.

Ordering coffee for them, Jim leaned back casually in his chair with the attitude of man without a care in the world. "I think it's working, so be ready."

Blair nodded, holding the menu in front of him as if they were discussing what to order. "Yeah, our spider sense has been tingling. We both get the feeling someone is watching us – " he broke off as the waitress came with the coffee.

"Have you any notions as to who would want you dead this much?" Race asked his cousin as Gage started pouring coffees.

Saran accepted his cup as Jim replied, formulating a question himself but then he noticed what Gage was doing. Ladling three sugars and a hefty dose of thick cream into the rich coffee, Gage vaguely held it out to Trey who equally as absently took it and imbibed a large sip without so much as blinking. Saran took his coffee black and strong and Trey had never once even looked at cream and sugar, never mind _asked_ him to pass them over! For pity's sake, was Logan _trying _to give him a guilt complex? How could a detective on Halfway Station, one of the toughest precincts around, be so timid?

At the same time, Jim was shaking his head. "I could paper a wall with the list of nasty people who'd sell their mothers for the chance to kill me, but the point is not one of _them_ has either the balls or the ability to be quote, confident of killing me on Eden, unquote."

For a split-second of a split-second, Gage and Trey's eyes met before Trey's eyelashes swept down. Such an infinitesimal moment would not even have been picked up by cameras or surveillance devices, but they were dealing with three Alpha Sentinels, two of whom were already hypersensitive to – and sheepishly jealous of - the deep friendship between their respective Guides.

Jim's eyes blazed. "My family _are not _suspects, Guide!" The Dark Sentinel's voice was a low snarl.

Trey's eyes opened impossibly wide; Gage's entire body flexed as he prepared to defend Trey against the Sentinel he didn't really like; Race stiffened as he faced the dichotomy of protecting his Guide from the angry Dark Sentinel who was also his friend; Saran's eyes narrowed dangerously, affronted by the fact that Trey had instinctively looked towards Gage and not _him_ for succour.

Their reactions occurred in another fraction of a second. Blair instantly acted to verbally extinguish the burning fuse of insulted anger. "It's _not_ like being a detective, Trey, where the family or close friends are the immediate suspects. The Oligarchy and the High Houses don't work like that."

"That's right," Gage put in to help defuse the tension. "These people are seriously weird, but not fratricidal."

"Hey!" Race scowled at his Guide.

Gage sniggered and then managed to not-quite-snipe, "Didn't Saran _bother _to explain the insanity to you?"

Saran's spine went rigid at the Guide's subtext but before he could part his lips, it suddenly struck him how feeble his intended retort of "I've been busy!" would sound. He would come off like some middle-management desk-warming husband trying to get out of admitting he'd forgotten his wedding anniversary or something!

Trey's voice was soft, "I apologise, Sentinel Ellison. It's just that I was a detective for a long time, and statistics show that most homicide victims are killed by an immediate family member – spouse, parent, child, or sibling."

Jim could _feel_ the heat of Blair and Gage's twin glares and mentally protested at finding himself the bad guy when he'd been insulted, but he soothed, "It's all right, you can't override years of proven "cop life experience" in a few months. But please don't worry about me being attacked by anyone in my family. Gage is tactless but correct, the High Houses don't quite operate according to the same reality as other people. Nobody in my family would kill me in order to become the Body Heir or indeed any variation on that theme."

Race interjected, "That's right. As long as you are _not_ the Body Heir, being the scion of a High House really is "all gain and no pain". We reap the benefits without having to bear the burdens."

"I couldn't _give_ my siblings or cousins the Body Heirship," Saran noted.

"Hunter is still very much in a "wouldn't touch a penny of the Ellison megabillions if you begged me" sort of place," Jim admitted of his half-brother. "Stephen is more than happy with his current position in the Ellison family business and would run a mile, screaming all the way. My half-sister Suzette is her mother Ehlan's Body Heir and Edmund is set on becoming a doctor, even if the pair of them weren't a bit too young yet for that sort of Machiavellian plotting, _übergeniuses_ though they are. The rest of the Ellison clan is only too happy to sit back and enjoy the bank accounts available without the work that goes into replenishing them. I have quite a few relatives who would probably smile if I happened to die, but they wouldn't dream of arranging my untimely end."

Trey looked blandly at Gage, eradicating all vestiges of a smirk from face and tone of voice. "So the High House clans are a couple of gunmen short of an Apocalypse, but they're not inherently homicidal?"

"Yep," Gage asserted, ignoring both the glares directed at them by three offended Sentinels and also the disguised snickering of a Dark Guide, who was heard to repeat, "_couple of gunmen short of an Apocalypse?" _in a _sotto voce _hiccoughing snigger.

Standing in a shallow alcove on the broad walkway less than ten feet away from his target, Ruis de _y_ l'Almonte's fingers tightened anticipatorily around the energy weapon in his hand. He sneered as he watched the six men settle down to lunch with obvious camaraderie, utterly clueless as to their vulnerability. This was so easy!

The elevated sidewalk passed right by Café Armand, within a couple of feet by their table. The shallow alcove was just deep enough for one adult to stand within it and be hidden from view to everyone except those who passed by it. The hustling, bustling throng of shoppers were a flowing but superbly concealing barrier as they walked past Ruis' position without even noticing he was there. Ruis' weapon was an aptly named Altairian Blaster,looking like a giant red onion with a handle. Long both illegal and obsolete, most people including a lot of law enforcement officers wouldn't have recognised it as a weapon even had Ruis been openly waving it about instead of keeping it discreetly half-hidden by his hand.

He eyed the six men again, glee bubbling up as he saw the fools enjoying their meal and joking with each other; he should have done this years ago! He had spent years hunting on his father's Eden estate, but anticipation unparalleled shot through Ruis at the thought of looking straight into Ellison's startled eyes and blasting a hole the size of a basketball in the asshole's chest…his genitals began to swell in response to the surging lust in his body…oh yeah…maybe even during the resulting screaming and panic, he could stun that pouty-mouthed Dark Guide and drag him somewhere quiet where the little whore could put that mouth and that ass to better use…

Ruis licked his lips greedily, savouring the adrenaline. He'd blow away Ellison, maybe even the High-and-Mighty LEO Commissioner to boot, and be the other side of the station before the first screams had faded. He would attend the funeral with Dear Old Dad, properly sober and shocked. Then it would be time for his old fart of a father to have an unfortunate accident. Perhaps a heart attack or a stroke?

He checked the table again. The six men had polished off a variety of foodstuffs that tended towards steak and ribs smothered in sweet sauces, and were now making inroads on Café Armand's famed melt-in-your-mouth confections, which were guaranteed to be laden with crème patisserie and 90 cocoa-butter chocolate. They were ideally positioned for Ruis to simply walk as if going past and then just bring up the blaster and fire.

He blew out a breath, settling the fluttering in his stomach now that The Moment had come. Ruis had scrapped his original plan, to hire a hitman to zone Ellison out and kill him in Cascade. The assassin would realistically have only one shot and if he failed would be killed or worse, captured, by Ellison and forced to reveal his employer. Even if he was successful, Ruis would have to hire someone to kill him, then get rid of that witness, and so forth; much easier, cheaper and sweeter to do it himself! Other problems had then presented themselves though. It was unlikely he could escape from Cascade without someone noticing the presence of the Body Heir of High House de _y_ l'Almonte, so killing Ellison in some other convenient locale where he was less likely to be noticed and where he could escape among large crowds of panicking people had become Ruis' _plan du jour_. Despite his self-delusions of grandeur, Ruis knew himself to be unskilled with long-range weapons such as a rifle, so he decided on a hand-held firearm.

Smiling happily, Ruis stepped out of the alcove and slipped effortlessly into the bustling crowd, walking casually towards the table. His overwhelming hubris meant that Ruis had never considered the fact that his "close-up" kills had always been inflicted on creatures unable to fight back instead of an equally sentient being capable of retaliatory action. Deferred to – spoilt rotten - since the cradle, he gave not a second's consideration to wondering what action the Guides – he didn't even think of them as human – might take.

Blair made a loud, completely unapologetic sucking sound as he slurped the luscious Morello Cherries off his spoon. He hadn't even tried to fight the Healthy Nourishment versus Yummy Food battle and tucked in along with the others. His wistful question to the Maitre D' as to whether Café Armand had any desserts containing _real_ Earth Morello Cherries had been answered with a definite yes. Blair was completely unaware of the fact that behind his turned head his Sentinel's eyes were boring through the unfortunate Maitre D' as they silently but grimly told the poor man that if the Café Armand _didn't_ have _real_ Earth Morello Cherries, they'd better find some, fast. The other men valiantly hid their smirks as Blair turned back to the table happily.

Gage and Race were self-confessed chocoholics, tucking into twin plates of rich goo with glee. Saran had the least sweet tooth of them all, eating a fresh-fruit and choux pastry combination.

Trey's lunch order, crispy chicken with Jack Daniels whisky glaze dip, had proved such a winner that he hadn't actually gotten to eat any of his first order. When the second batch came around, Trey actually went so far as to bat Saran's hand away and glare at the others pointedly with his fork poised to strike. He relaxed now that his dessert wasn't under such threat. He liked tart things and the lemon and lime dessert he was now slowly making his way through was superb.

It was Trey and not Blair, for all the latter's Dark Guide status, who sensed a frisson of _something _a few seconds ahead of the other two empaths. He had always been acutely sensitive to subtle nuances of emotion that even other powerful empaths missed; it was part of the reason why he had been so tragically good at his job in the Juvenile Crimes Division. Running his tongue over his tingling teeth as he decided where to attack his dessert again from next, Trey felt the external mixture of anticipation, sexual arousal, glee and jubilation wash over him. For a moment his lips curved upwards in response to the blast of ebullience but then, like a bitter aftertaste, the "greasy" taint of dark undercurrents surged. The anticipation was overlaid with an afterimage of spurting blood and the sickly-sweet stench of charred human flesh. The building lust carried with it the echoing screams of a body violated against it's will; the glee was spiteful; the jubilation viscously cloying with hate.

Blair and Gage caught the empathic ripple a second later, and simultaneously, Trey's eyes widened as he mentally received an emotion so strong it was actually visual: pure bloodlust wrapped in the image of Jim Ellison's chest exploding in a spray of gore.

Sentinel-hyperactive reflexes kicked in before conscious thought and sent the three men back out of harm's way as in unison Trey, Gage and Blair surged upright from beside their startled Sentinels, throwing the table forward to act as a shielding barrier even as Sentinel ears detected the low _whoooof-whine_ sound peculiar to the charging power cells of hand-held energy weapons. Coffee, confectionary and crockery flew through the air to spatter, splat and shatter unheeded. Before mouths could formulate any question or demands regarding this extraordinary behaviour, the overturned table rocked as it absorbed the discharge of a hand-held blaster that a second earlier would have impacted with Jim Ellison's chest – after going through Gage Butler first. No further explanations were needed.

Screams filled the air as people tried to scatter away from the epicentre of the mayhem. Ruis reeled momentarily in shock, unable to adjust mentally as his blast killed the table and not Ellison. Ruis took in the three unharmed Guides and as had happened often before, he was swamped with an unreasoning, bestial rage that consumed him and drove rational thought from his brain. Shrieking in rage at their daring to thwart him, he fired straight at the Dark Guide, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He heard nothing of the shouting around him, saw nothing of the dangerous looking people converging on his position, knowing only that his unholy desires had been thwarted.

Jim swept Blair's knees out from under him as the Sentinel's hyperactive ears caught the warning ­_whoosh-crackle_ of discharge, catching him effortlessly as he collapsed, and another energy ball sizzled above his head so close that it singed the hair on Blair's scalp. Race roared, an inhuman sound of pure terror-driven fury as Gage crouched without cover to one side of the table over the prone Maitre D' who was tangled up in the legs of an overturned chair. Gage's eyes locked with those of his Sentinel and he stretched out one arm yearningly –

"**HALFWAY PD! DROP IT ASSHOLE!" **

Like a vid screen being paused, the pandemonium suddenly ceased as everyone automatically responded to the authority in that furiously bellowed command.

In that freeze-frame moment, Ruis de _y_ l'Almonte stared in stupefaction and incandescent fury as the smallest and most fragile-looking of the Guide-whores stood up directly in front of him and pointed a handgun straight at him with one hand, displaying a pathetically small gold badge at him with the other. _Asshole_! Completely pushed over the edge of rational thought by his egotism and the fact that _nobody_ had _ever_ denied his whims, Ruis turned the blaster towards this new target –

Without hesitation, Trey fired two rapid shots into the attacker's chest, both striking the man's heart.

The blaster dropped to hit the floor with a deafeningly loud crack. Ruis stared at Trey with wide eyes, a faintly puzzled expression appearing briefly before his eyes went totally blank and he followed the blaster down.

Race hauled Gage into his embrace by the scruff of his Guide's neck even as the Dark Angel agents formed a living corral around the scene, blocking sight of what was happening. Jim and Blair stood side by side as Dark Angel agents crowded round the body. Trey lowered his hands, dimly aware of Saran moving to stand behind him, flinching slightly as two hands came to rest on his shoulder.

Ignoring his half-brother, Ellison Vincent Hunter went to crouch over the corpse and suddenly reared back up, a vile epithet exploding from his lips.

"What?" Jim took a step forward at the shocked and amazed expressions mirrored on the faces of the Dark Angels. "Who is he?"

Hunter raised grim eyes to his half-brother's face. "Body Heir Ruis de _y_ l'Almonte."

Chapter X – Damage Control 

The coffee was so hot as to be almost scalding. Trey knew it didn't really matter. Were he to ingest something as hot as Earth's sun, it still wouldn't thaw the bitter, absolute cold that permeated every cell of his being.

_All that glitters is not gold_. The ancient proverb popped suddenly into Trey's numb brain and he tasted salty blood as he bit down on his bottom lip with his teeth to suppress an outpouring of hysterical laughter. He recognised that he was "in shock" through a comforting buffer of emotional detachment that he also knew wouldn't last forever.

In less than fifteen Earth minutes, the scene at Café Armand had been "wiped down" so efficiently it might never have happened, everyone including the corpse – Trey shuddered – swiftly removed. Even now the Dark Angels back-up Disinformer agents were spreading the story that someone had gone crazy while spaced out on vibe in The Promenade. The near-miss experience by Saran, Race and Jim only added verisimilitude to the tale, since of course a _deliberate_ attack on those three men, who between them comprised of three Alpha Sentinels, two High House Body Heirs, one LEO High Commissioner and two favourite sons, would be so ludicrous as to be unbelievable.

So now here Trey was on the glittering but not gold _T'Pau_, which orbited high above Halfway on one of the most exclusive, highest rent docking rings. The Dark Angels, even the intense, dangerous Hunter-Killer agents, had been kind to Trey, escorting him to this quiet suite and speaking softly to the obviously distraught man. Somewhere far, far below, hopefully many, many levels down, Lord R- the body – was in storage for the trip…wherever.

Not that the _T'Pau_ looked remotely like a Dark Angels vessel. In actual fact, the Dark Angels only had a few ships that actually resembled their true "kick ass and take names" function. The whole idea of their organisation was to _blend in_ not _stand out_, thus most ships resembled anything other than what they were – cargo ships, freighters, luxury space liners, even garbage scows. The _T'Pau _was ostensibly a luxury space liner, and indeed should any surveillance devices be brought on board/penetrate inside the hull, that is exactly what they would show – luxurious appointments such as the silk couch Trey was currently trembling on. The Dark Angels certainly didn't believe in ascetic self-denial if it could be avoided. Nevertheless, for all it's silk and gold, Trey would have laid odds that the _T'Pau_ packed more weaponry per square inch than most planets could muster.

His stomach roiled as that nice numb buffer collapsed and Trey dove for the bathroom, uncaring of the exorbitantly expensive, exquisitely crafted Italian marble toilet bowl as he brought back the coffee and his lunch into it. Finally he stood shakily, rinsing his mouth with water from the washbasin as the toilet auto-flushed and sterilised itself. Aching in every part of his being, he shuffled back to the luxurious couch and sank down, ignoring the burning in his throat and oesophagus from stomach acid.

Something dug into his hip and he pulled out a small gold object, his now obsolete detective's badge that he kept in his suite at the Commissioner's Residence. He had taken to holding it in the evenings, sitting on his bed and rubbing his thumb across the badge number, fortifying himself by remembering the good times he'd had on Halfway, the rich satisfaction he'd gotten from being able to protect a child from further harm. Even now he had no idea of why he had obeyed the impulse to bring the badge with him to Halfway. Trey sighed; his actions had been a matter of pure instinct, without conscious thought. The perp with the blaster had been threatening innocent civilians and cop instincts to protect others and focus the danger towards himself had kicked in. The gun and identifying badge were in his hands, his voice barking out the traditional challenge before his conscious mind was anywhere near catching up with what he was doing. The perp had continued to attack and Trey had automatically taken him down.

That reflex was drilled into every Police Cadet from Day One of training, for it had been a hard-won victory for law enforcement. By 2010, with "suicide by cop" epidemic in the then United States of America, the Prince of Wales had personally endorsed a Bill through the British Parliament granting immunity from civil suits and/or criminal prosecution for police officers who killed/injured an armed perpetrator only for the villain's gun to be fake. Civil liberty groups screamed initially, but scientific fact proved that it was impossible, in the split second available to him or her, for a police officer to accurately determine whether a gun was real or not, particularly in view of the fact that children's "toy" handguns, especially those made in the USA, were designed to be as realistic as possible. In the famous Canary Wharf test, a British newspaper lined up ten people, each holding a handgun, some of which were real, some of which were fake toys/decorative cigarette lighters/paperweights, etc. They then took ten firearms experts, including a British SAS Commando, a US Navy SEAL, a twenty-five year NYPD veteran sergeant and an Israeli West Bank police captain, and asked them to pick out the fakes. Even from as little as five feet away, none got a 100 score. Only from a distance of two feet did the experts accurately identify the real guns from the fakes, and then only after several minutes of long looking. The point was made and the British police were delighted that finally the responsibility for being stupid enough to wave a gun about and threaten people was dumped on the shoulders of the criminal, instead of the police officer being blamed as some sort of trigger-happy cowboy when the situation went to hell in a hand basket.

All of which meant _squat_ here and now. A nobody – a _Guide_ who ranked even less in the social consciousness – had stood there in full view of the passing public and shot to death the Body Heir – and only child – of a High House Patriarch. Trey was as dead as Ruis de _y _l'Almonte, the universe just hadn't caught up with that fact yet -

"_TREY!"_

Trey jumped violently as his name penetrated, the sharpness of tone indicating his name had been uttered repeatedly. Saran stood in front of him, the Sentinel's acute olfactory sense making his nose wrinkle as he smelled the lingering taint of vomit and the very strong scent of Trey's fear.

Entering and finding Trey staring with worryingly blank eyes at the suite's wall, Saran moderated his tone as his Guide's eyes focused on him nervously. "The _T'Pau_ is going to undock in a few minutes. We're heading for Federation with Code Red PVC, so we should be there in an hour. Don't be alarmed if you feel a funny pressure on your body, it's from the extreme acceleration."

Trey nodded silently, finding himself too tired to speak inanities.

"That's your detective badge."

Trey had almost forgotten what he held in his hand. There was a tone in Saran's voice he couldn't identify as the Sentinel held out his hand. With a reluctance he knew was obvious, Trey obediently placed the badge in Saran's hand.

"You brought your badge with you." It was not a question.

Trey shrugged slightly.

"Try and get some rest," Saran ordered/suggested, "before we get to Federation. It will take a while to straighten this out."

"Right," Trey muttered.

"You acted In self-defence to protect others," Saran responded sharply.

"Yeah, right. I'm a nobody and an empath! I killed a High House scion who was also the Body Heir and only child of a Patriarch. I'm as good as dead and we both know it!"

"Stop getting hysterical!" Saran snapped, striving to remain calm. "That isn't what happened."

Trey gave a bitter laugh, "You can't actually be that naïve? As if what really happened will count for anything –"

Saran's eyes flashed. "What really happened will count for _everything_ as long as I am LEO Commissioner, regardless of who is involved," his tone was arctic, "and have you forgotten you are also my Guide?"

From somewhere deep inside Trey, the magma of suppressed anger and resentment surged straight up a newly discovered fissure and spurted forth along his vocal chords. He was suddenly furious. "Do you really think I am that stupid or that gullible, _Van den Mikhail_?" His tone made the name an epithet and Trey was irrationally pleased when Saran blinked and even leaned back from him a tiny fraction. "I'm nothing – hell, I'm less than nothing. If you're an empath, people don't even class you as _human, _and I killed Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonte's only child! You think that he or anyone else amongst you High House hypocrites will give a damn about the fact that Ruis was a raving psychopath when I killed him? We're not even bonded, so do you really think I don't know the instant your pet doctors tell your dear mother the Vicereine that you can rebond with some pansy neutered socially acceptable Guide, that you won't give me to Alphonse de _y _l'Almonte tied up with a big red bow? You destroyed my career, ruined my life, and now I'm going to end up being revenge-assassinated by l'Almonte because I blew away his waste of oxygen son! Sure, there's nothing to get hysterical about, I don't think!"

"Have you finished?" Saran said in a voice that could flay the skin off a rhino.

"I think we've both finished." Trey was suddenly exhausted. "Please leave, High Commissioner." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Fine." With spiteful deliberation, Saran shoved the police badge in his own pocket, angrily pleased at the flicker of distress on Trey's face before the empath's expression set stubbornly.

Whirling on his heel, the Sentinel stalked out of the suite, hearing the door slide shut behind him followed by the distinctive _snick_ of the lock. His mouth twisted, not that it mattered. That suite was the one reserved for the LEO High Commissioner when aboard the _T'Pau_ anyway; Saran could override as many locks as Trey wanted to engage so he could get to his Guide as and when he chose; let Logan sulk and stamp his feet if he wanted to…

The _T'Pau_ had many state-of-the-art outfitted, large conference suites that doubled as Command and Control – C&C – centres plus a secondary Bridge, to supplement the Main Bridge, which was always computer linked to each of them. All Dark Angel ships, plus the largest IFP military Battlestar spaceships, contained such rooms in greater or lesser numbers. In case of sudden attack/crisis, they meant that the Captain and Bridge Officers could direct matters as easily as if they had been on the Main Bridge without them having to waste valuable minutes trying to get to the Main Bridge, particularly if they happened to be at the other side of a large ship when the event occurred, and the advantages of multiple back-up C&Cs in case of Main Bridge destruction were too obvious to need explanation. Indeed, some of the Battlestars had prominent – and entirely fake – Main Bridges protruding out of the front section designed to encourage an enemy to concentrate fire there.

This conference suite was replete with people who all looked politely enquiring when the legendarily icy "Winter King" came storming in with a face like thunder. Saran practically threw himself into a chair as the very air in the room seemed to shimmer and everyone felt a slight jerk as if an invisible hand had simultaneously given their intestines a short upwards tug. Scientists had come up with various ways to make interstellar travel faster and most spacecraft of utilised a mixture of methods taken from the choices of warp speed, hyper speed, slipstream drives, Stargate wormholes, Hyper jump points and so forth to get from A to B.

By IFP law, all spacecraft built to carry ten plus people, regardless of design purpose, had to have a minimum of two _different_ velocity systems installed, even if one was relegated to a back-up/redundancy system. In this way, it was virtually impossible for a ship to be stranded so far in deep space as to be unable to reach a safe planet or solar system. In the 22nd and 23rd Centuries, such tragedies had happened, with ships carrying dozens or hundreds of people doomed when their sole propulsion system experienced irreparable failure for some reason. In some cases, these "lost" ships had been found much later, floating in space with the desiccated dead aboard. Those aboard the _Lusitania_ had committed suicide en masse; twenty-three children aboard the _Golden Sprite_ had been discovered alive 150 years after it's disappearance, as the adults had put them into cryogenic stasis.

Without such systems, reaching a habitable planet or the nearest Stargate could take decades or centuries, the people aboard doomed to die of starvation or asphyxiation long before then. Warp engines depended on "Dilithium Crystals" that could crack under temperature extremes, while hyper speed engines had to be constantly monitored to prevent overheating and meltdown. Stargate wormholes were acutely sensitive to solar flares, while hyperspace was easy to get irretrievably lost in if the ship's "lock" on the jump point failed. Having two or more different propulsion systems guaranteed that if problems started with one, the other was unlikely to be affected.

The wealthier the individual or organisation that had commissioned the craft, the more propulsion systems could be included. The _T'Pau, _like all Dark Angel battle ships, had them all. Thanks to being granted a Code Red Priority Velocity Clearance – PVC – the _T'Pau_ could utilise any and all of these systems taking precedence over any other ship in order to get to Federation as fast as possible.

As he sat visibly glowering in the chair that automatically contoured itself to his body shape, Saran was in no frame of mind to be properly appreciative of the awesome power that thrummed many decks below, nor of the rich buttery sheen the wall lighting cast on the huge, genuine mahogany conference table. Expressions were schooled into bland neutrality, but witnessing perpetually icy, aloof Saran Van den Mikhail fulminating on the verge of an actual _emotional outburst_ was a sight so rare as to require due respect.

A few seats down and across, Ellison Vincent Hunter raised one eyebrow at the LEO High Commissioner. The Cascade IA Captain looked remarkably at home amidst this gathering, despite his sartorial elegance being a cut above the basic boots, pants, shirt ensemble of most of those present. Hunter wore a light blue double-breasted suit with waistcoat and low-heeled boots of an exactly matching shade, plus a snow-white shirt and a slim, blue-and silver check tie. His suit had slender silver threads running through it, giving it a pinstripe look and also perfectly highlighting his pale ice-blue eyes. In contrast, Jim Ellison wore plain black boots, neat beige pants of a style similar to "chinos" and a soft, long-sleeved sky blue sweater that served to bring out _his_ ice-blue eyes. The two men looked as alike as to be twins, only the fact that Jim had a slightly thicker crop of short-cut blond hair indicating him to be the younger. Next to Hunter sat a tall man with short, spiky dark blond hair and utterly pitiless green eyes. Dressed in black from head to toe, Christopher Larabee had an intensity that seemed to electronically charge the very air around his body. Completely impassive, the one thing he and Hunter had in common was their apparent imperviousness to the discomfort they, Bondless Sentinels, were causing their Bonded brethren who happened to be present.

However, looking respectfully towards one man, they waited with patient deference for him to speak. The table was oval in shape, at the "top" nearest to the door being where the Captain would sit, with his First Officer on his right and his XO on his left, with the rest of the senior officers, the Flag Officers, seated around the rest of the table according to rank or seniority in the case of those who shared equal rank. At the moment the Captain's Chair, since that worthy was on the Main Bridge controlling the _T'Pau _with his FO, XO and other officers, was taken up by a tall, rangy black man who bore a startling resemblance to the famous 20th – 21st Century actor Samuel L. Jackson, perfectly understandable since Brigadier Lincoln Winston Jackson was the directly-descended so-many-greats-grandson of the man.

For a threat against the immediate family members of a High House, the Dark Angels responded with a tendency towards overkill. When that threat involved the Body Heir of a High House, the Dark Angels didn't just bring out the "big guns" they simply exterminated with _extreme prejudice_ and never even bothered with the questions. In the knowledge that the would-be killer of James Ellison could be someone "inside" the Oligarchy or the Nine Ruling Houses, the Dark Angels Central Command had directly appointed Jackson to command the operation that had just ended successfully – or not, as was the opinion of Trey Logan – with the elimination of the threat. It was rumoured that the Central Command had been ordered to appoint Jackson by the Dark Angels Supreme Commander; it would never be confirmed, nobody alive had any knowledge of the Supreme Commander's age, gender or race. Not even Central Command had any inkling of his or her identity. He or she was never seen and heard only via voice synthesiser. The "Supreme Commander of the Dark Angels" reputation had long, long since passed beyond legend into almost semi-divinity.

Descended from generations of Dark Angel operatives, it was rumoured that Jackson had been born clutching the famous pin depicting the black wings and crooked halo in his hand. Brigadier Jackson's mother had been a Dark Angel Hunter-Killer agent, and his father had ordered him to revert to her maiden surname after she was killed. However, Brigadier Jackson was regarded with enormous respect by the Dark Angels, a towering accolade worth far more than any medal, to be honoured by so many lethal, dangerous people. Like the great Prime Minister he was named for, Jackson was an outstanding war leader who worked harder _and _smarter; his priority was enabling his people to fulfil their mission as best he could, but he understood the importance of achieving "victory with _honour_" and like Churchill, was always ready to "jaw-jaw" if it had a realistic chance of averting "war-war". He was wise enough to _listen _to his advisers and let his subordinates do their jobs without micromanagement.

Like the great President he was also named after, Jackson believed in brevity and clarity. Long speeches and a love of the sound of his own voice had never been his failings. "Is Trey Logan all right?" Brigadier Jackson asked, his voice low but authoritative.

Saran needed to vent. "All right? All right? No, he is not!" Angrily the Sentinel reiterated the conversation with his Guide - albeit not Trey's crack about them not being bonded – as if Saran didn't know that! "He's got some sort of persecution complex! I've half a mind to sedate him. Logan's obviously on the verge of hysteria-"

"Of _course_ Trey Logan is hysterical." Gage Butler cut across the rant. "_All_ empaths are. We hide what we are and live in uncertainty and fear because we find it _fun_. Didn't you know? We only go on the run as wild empaths because we're _neurotic._ It has nothing to do with being treated like freaks, losing our jobs, having our families harassed, seeing our marriages break up and losing custody of kids because of one tiny dot on a brain scan. We just like to live dangerously!"

If Gage Butler's tone had been literal acid, it would have eaten through the tabletop as he spat the words into a silence so tense it was almost physically painful. Race's hand twitched minutely. "Don't touch me, Sentinel." Butler didn't even look at his Sentinel, his tone pure venom.

Brigadier Jackson turned his head slightly toward Saran. "Commissioner." His tone was soft as he uttered but a single word that nevertheless conveyed what he didn't say.

Saran didn't speak. He couldn't. There had been too much bitter vitriol in Butler's tone for him to be anything other than speaking the truth, or at least what he believed to be truth. Saran inclined his head in one sharp nod that was also understood by the room's occupants. The Guides, wild empaths all, for such had the fortitude to cope with the rigours of the Dark Angel life, exchanged between them brief glances of surprise and hope, which were instantly noted by those present, particularly the Sentinels. Sitting silently beside Jim, Blair Sandburg saw the sudden, twin expressions of perturbed thoughtfulness that flickered across the faces of Captain Hunter and "Hellhound" Larabee and he bit down a smile of satisfaction. Their comfortable world-view had just been shaken up, and that could only bode well for the Guides that Blair _knew_ were out there unconsciously waiting, somewhere in the big universe. Everyone in this room had just been given a big nasty-tasting dollop of home truth to digest and Blair heartily approved, for all his complete happiness in his bond with Jim. Speaking of Bonding, there would be plenty of that in the near future unless he missed his guess. The Sentinels had clearly been unsettled by the rage and pain in the voice of the Guide Gage Butler and would seek to reaffirm their position with their own Guides. That unease should make them push a bit empathically deeper in the bond, which in turn would strengthen the connection.

_So now that Gage has encouraged a bit more love and understanding between the Dark Angel Sentinels and their Guides, how are we going to get Trey out of this mess?_ Blair asked himself and stifled a grimace as there was no reply.

_To be concluded…_

_© 2003, C D Stewart_


	6. Chapters 11 & 12

Author's Note: _Please read the EXPLANATION that follows the end of this. _ Chapter XI – The Man Planet Federation, Dark Angels HQ, less than 48 hours later… 

Trey Logan sat alone, sipping yet another cup of coffee in a large anteroom that was clearly a stratum lower than the suite aboard the _T'Pau_; it merely rated as "plush" rather than "opulent". Of course, Trey acknowledged, there was little point in pouring money into the décor of places you periodically abandoned, for this, while Dark Angels HQ, was not the _same_ Dark Angels HQ that Gage Butler had made his escape from. Indeed, Gage had actually pointed out the gleaming domes over which he had done his gazelle impression to Trey as their shuttle brought them from the spaceport to…here.

Trey certainly had to admit the guiding principle behind the Dark Angels moonlight flits was rock solid. In the mid 21st century, in the decades after the pivotal 9/11, the Dark Angels had not been created, but had rather "just happened", growing organically. Originally comprised of a small cabal of men and women scattered amongst a variety of law enforcement and secret service agencies across the globe, the ephemeral cadre had become solid when one of these persons, possessing a goal-oriented drive and obsessive-compulsive approach extreme for even those who inhabited such shadowy occupations, had drawn the clique together with himself – or herself – as the first self-appointed (though carefully never self-styled) Supreme Commander. Who that was, and when, was unknown and forever would be, the Supreme Commander's ruthless hold on complete personal anonymity in place from the very start.

One of the early Commanders, perhaps the first one, had been an organisational genius, and had foreseen clearly the inherent danger facing the tiny, still unnoticed group. Many, many "covert operations" groups, such as the FBI; CIA; NSA; Mossad; KGB; MI5/6 and Sûreté had started off tiny, small and deadly, like a Black Widow spider, but had gradually, imperceptibly, ballooned until one day they were Public And In The Press, having all the lightening fast manoeuvrability of a Blue Whale. Bit by bit each of these organisations had acquired more secretaries, more desks, more forms, larger and more imposing offices, until they were ponderous bureaucracies just as too-slow-to-act and too-smothered-in-red-tape as the previous bureaucracies they had been created to supplant. This Supreme Commander was generally believed to have been British, since it was an English adventure-action series, called _Professionals_ or something similar, which gave him – or her – the idea that was now Dark Angels Standard Operating Procedure. In one episode of the show, the organisation's "controller" had been the victim of an attempted bombing, and one character remarked to the other that it should have been impossible since the man didn't even have a "regular" office.

The Dark Angel's then ruler had taken that notion fully on board, and virtually from their inception, the organisation had had neither official nor permanent HQ. The Dark Angels leased a building under the guise of a legitimate business for weeks, months, sometimes barely a few days other times a couple of years, but would one day disappear as abruptly as they'd come in. It made the Dark Angels command hierarchy notoriously difficult to eliminate. Back when they were little more than rumour and growing legend in "spook" circles, more than one terrorist/fanatic group had expended unaffordable time, effort and money preparing bombs/death squad attacks that failed because of the Dark Angels completely unpredictable tendency to "move house" apparently on a whim. It also prevented the organisation's "bloating". Bureaucrats like order and regimen and routine; they like stacks of filing cabinets and bevies of secretaries. Having to uproot your entire office and filing system with maybe thirty minutes notice every few weeks did not do a bureaucrat's nervous system any good.

New technology like the Information Superhighway Global Grid, which had been a godsend during the early decades of human space exploration, had rendered a lot of paper work obsolete. Palm readers, ebooks, flimsies and so forth, re-designed and/or invented to make maximum use of the desperate lack of space on interstellar colonisation ships, had all come along and whittled down the "stuff to hump from place to place even further". Nowadays, secretarial college prospectuses proudly declared that "any competent secretary" could run an office like clockwork with nothing more than a chair, a foot square of flat surface, a computer, a reader and a couple of reusable flimsies. While the Dark Angels were now a much larger organisation than the 22 original founders back in 2007, they still moved HQ frequently and were totally devoid of the tedious paper shuffling that afflicted their more traditional covert ops brethren.

Trey blew out his breath in a bitter sigh as he dropped the cup in the discreet waste disposal unit and watched it get vaporised in a puff of molecules, morbidly realising that his future prospects were just about as optimistic. For a non-Dark Angel to be taken into Dark Angels HQ was officially a Fate Worse Than Death. Entire libraries worth of lurid legends existed about what occurred on the "inside" of the secretive organisation, extremely implausible and wildly far-fetched and often downright ridiculous. Since the entire ethos of the Dark Angels was to be invisible, "always present but never there", in the words of the 1st Baron Thatcher, husband of Britain's first female Prime Minister, publicly dragging people they wanted to "disappear" into an intimidating building was not the sort of thing the Dark Angels did. People who annoyed the Dark Angels were disposed of covertly and with total inconspicuousness and without anyone being any the wiser.

Since arriving, Trey had been treated with nothing but gentle kindness by the Dark Angels in the place, all of whom looked like nothing more than mildly affluent office executives, painfully aware of their silent but overt consensus that he had done the universe a favour in ridding it of Ruis. He had been placed in this anteroom by a dainty, pretty, five-foot-nothing blonde secretary with big blue eyes, who looked not a day over eighteen and whom Trey had no doubt knew a thousand and one ways to kill him with a blunt pencil, while the Great & Good – Saran, Race Keegan, Jim, _et al_ - had traipsed off to make the Big Decisions and see that Ruis's corpse was deposited in the safety of the Dark Angels morgue many, many levels below.

Unfortunately, while his actions had been approved off at an individual level, Trey was aware that the ruthlessly pragmatic Dark Angels were considering their reactions in the light of the ubiquitous and iniquitous Big Picture. Every so often, Trey would pop out of the anteroom to get more coffee from the pot in the small office/typing pool area outside, just to give himself something to do, since he would invariably start pacing and end up disposing of cold coffee. On the last trip, he'd overheard one man walking down the corridor sardonically comment to his companion on how the scions of House de y l'Almonté were indecorously scrambling to check out their family genealogies in order to establish just how close their biological links to the Patriarch Alphonse were.

By killing Ruis, Trey had not just opened up a vacancy for Body Heir but had created a potential power vacuum and the possibility of "interested parties" being able to stir political instability in the Oligarchy, the IFP's most powerful ruling segment. Various warlords/tyrants on the Frontier Worlds would be watching with slavering interest to see what happened, and even the eye of that beautiful monster the Eternal Empress would be peering at them from the depths of the Atewam Empire.

Trey rotated his neck and glanced at his wristwatch. How long was this going to take? He was under no illusions. No matter how much they might try to protect him, Gage and Blair could in no way effect a wild shoot-'em-up escape attempt from Dark Angels HQ, assuming they would even try. They were Guides now, soul-bonded to two Sentinels who both happened to be Dark Angels. They would probably have no choice but to let him be Don Alphonse's sacrificial lamb. Likewise Simon Banks had no power outside his running of Cascade PD, and for him to go up against the Dark Angels in any sort of rescue attempt would be nothing less than suicide.

Trey freely acknowledged he was dreading laying eyes on Patriarch Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonté, even though he had no compunction about killing Ruis; in that split instant before he pulled the trigger, he had been empathically linked to the other man's mind and had "seen" that Ruis was a sociopath. He was a drone bee, a parasite draining resources that could have been profitably used elsewhere; a user and abuser who had engineered no less than three murder attempts against Alphonse in the past two years, secure in the knowledge that success would give him the Patriarchy and sole access to the vast resources thereof, with no siblings to take shares out of it.

In what he knew to be a futile attempt to get his thoughts out of the weary, circular grooves they were scoring in his brain, Trey opened the door and headed for the coffee pot again…

Blair accepted the large mug of coffee handed to him by Jim with gratitude, and wished he had some painkillers to go with it as he massaged his neck wearily. For all Blair's preference for natural remedies, there were times when only drugs would do.

There were lots of colourful and profane ways of describing the current situation, but the simplest and most accurate would be "complete mess". Blair glanced around at the collection of glum and grim faces. Leaving Trey alone in that anteroom had been one of the hardest things he'd had to do, even though the Dark Guide part of him knew Jim needed his presence; ditto for Gage. By the time they'd gathered in _this_ conference room, a virtual clone of the one aboard the _T'Pau_ with a little less hidden gadgetry but probably just as many weapons, the tension between Gage and Saran was acute, with Race Keegan in the middle. The Sentinel was so tense that if you flicked him with a finger, he'd vibrate like a tuning fork. Blair had to admit that Saran, to the LEO High Commissioner's credit, was now clearly taking seriously the idea that Trey was more than a petulant wild empath playing for sympathy.

The coffee was strong and bitter and just what Blair's battered neurons needed. In the last hour and a half even his anthropological obsession had reached information overload as he was given a crash course into the inner working of the Oligarchy and the Houses thereof. Blair certainly did not envy any scion of House de _y_ l'Almonté in the Body Heir scramble that would inevitably follow this debacle!

As Blair had learned, it was extraordinarily unusual for a Patriarch or Matriarch (or the Head of any House) to have less than three children. Generally speaking, the Patriarch or Matriarch followed the "heir and spare" philosophy of ancient aristocratic families of Earth. Generally speaking, the firstborn of the Head and his or her Consort was the Body Heir because usually the child was designed specifically for that purpose by the Patriarch/Matriarch; Jim Ellison and Saran van Den Mikhail were both the firstborn and Body Heirs of their parents (Hunter, being a natural, undesigned birth, didn't "count" despite being older than Jim).

However, there were still plenty of exceptions to the "generally speaking" rule. The current Patriarch of House Stantley, for example, had been a "spare" until being made Body Heir at age 17 when an air-skiff race collision on Kay Setaina had turned his elder brother and previous Body Heir into a charred smear on a mountainside.

The Heads of the Houses often also designed each of their children to be individually brilliant and scintillating, then picked a Body Heir later on in a "nurture over nature" decision. The late Patriarch Khan Syal had done this, choosing the current Matriarch Madjhuri as his Body Heir even though Saran van Den Mikhail's mother, the Vicereine of Olban, was his favourite child,one more example of the merciless pragmatism practised by the High Houses. The laws of inheritance amongst Houses - High, Lesser, Associate and Name – were complex enough without being thrown the "curveball" of a dead Body Heir who was an only child.

Technically, only one of the surviving children of the House Head and his or her chosen Consort could be appointed as a new Body Heir due to the death or attainder of the original, since the Consort's genome had been specifically chosen to produce 50 of the Body Heir. It was, very superficially, the way that the sons of the Sultana would inherit in ancient Earth cultures even though the Sultan might have other children by wives/concubines he was simultaneously married to, or the way the sons of the French Queens inherited, though the French Kings were notorious for having entire regiments of illegitimate (and sometimes more talented) offspring. Both the parents could have, even simultaneously, children by other Spouses, Co-Parents or Genome Contracts, but if these were not the children of the Body Heir Designate Parent's chosen Consort they couldn't in theory inherit.

Blair gulped more coffee as his headache throbbed. He knew there was a reason why he disliked lawyers. There were precedents of course, especially back in the days when the Houses were little more than clans of robber barons/shadily legal pirates/interstellar privateers. The 3rd - or maybe 4th – Patriarch of House van Zant had been chosen as Body Heir after someone inconsiderately and accidentally assassinated his elder brother (along with several other people) courtesy of a plasma bomb, a position of responsibility – and _work_ - he did _not_ want.

Within weeks of becoming the new Patriarch, Maxim had offloaded the job onto one of his half-sisters by the simple expedient of _retroactively_ elevating her late mother to the status of his late father's "new" Consort. Since his own mother, the previous Patriarch's first Consort, was as deceased as her husband and the later Spouse who had unknowingly posthumously supplanted her, there was nobody to mount legal objections, particularly since Maxim and his dead brother were the only offspring of the Patriarch and his original Consort. Purists who argued that if Patriarch Otto had wanted to appoint a new Consort he would have elevated one of his subsequent Spouses during his lifetime were blithely ignored. House van Zant got it's first Matriarch, a truly gifted and talented ruler, that led to that House's tendency towards Matriarchal succession over male children, and ex-Patriarch Maxim got back to being a "man about town" idler.

As Blair understood it, the problem was that Ruis de _y _l'Almonté, like Saran van Den Mikhail, was the only child of the House Head and the Consort. There any similarities ended, of course. Much as Saran seemed to be one of the worst things that had ever happened to Trey (other than shooting a Body Heir), he could be in no way compared to the monster that Blair and Gage's empathic "readings" of the man had shown Ruis to be. While the Vicereine of Olban had had only Saran by her Consort Aleksandr van Den Mikhail, a situation Blair was sure would have changed had van Den Mikhail and his father-in-law not been killed so soon after the marriage, she had several other children by various Husbands, Co-Parents and even a couple of Genome-Only Contracts. Should the worst happen to Saran, the Vicereine had a respectable pool of candidates, any one of whose fathers she could elevate to the position of Consort. If she was _really_ obsessive about having a child with Aleksandr's genome as her successor, she could design a new child using her and her original Consort's DNA, or clone Saran should she wish, from his stored genome if there was nothing enough of a body remaining.

Don Alphonse had no such options. Since the death of his Consort, he had had no subsequent Wives, Co-Parents or entered into any genome only offspring contracts; his Consort had been vaporised in the accident which turned her and several other travellers into statistics. In a dose of truly bad luck, her genome had been one of 117 irretrievably lost during the Cavalcade Riots when pro-anarchy protestors had destroyed the power supply to one section of the Adelphi Solar System Genome Repository in the Andromeda Galaxy Genetic Bank on President Abraham Lincoln Boulevard, not six blocks from where this building, unless Blair missed his guess, was situated.

Apparently cloning Ruis was also an unlikely prospect. Whilst cloning an embryo or infant was nothing to worry about, cloning an adult human was far from a sinecure under the most "ideal" conditions. Consistent dissipation and indulgence in alcohol and exotic narcotics had left Ruis with some interesting STDs and narcotic induced tissue damage; more trauma had been caused by Trey blowing a large hole in most of Ruis' prime cloning DNA. Finally, due to the way that the body needed to be stored aboard the _T'Pau_ in order to bring it back to Federation, it incurred macro and micro-cellular damage to bone marrow. A clone of Ruis _could_ be attempted if Don Alphonse insisted on it, but there was less than 20 chance it would work at all, and less than 5 chance that a healthy, viable clone would result, even if Don Alphonse accepted having a baby clone and not a mature adult. Attempting to do even the standard pre-embryonic designing of the genome to ensure no physical defects would proportionally increase the risk of failure, never mind programming in certain desired characteristics such as successful business acumen, accounting skills, leadership qualities, etc.

The one – very, very small – bit of positive outcome to this whole ghastly mess, Blair acknowledged as he felt the coffee doing more wonderful damage to his synapses, was that it had enabled another step to be taken towards achieving some rapprochement in the triangle between William Ellison and his two oldest sons. En route to here, Blair had been present in Jim's suite when his Sentinel and Hunter had used the vidlink to contact William Ellison. Despite the gravity of the situation, Blair had to repress a snort. Where else on the _T'Pau_ would he have been? The presence of so many Bondless – and _powerful_ – Sentinels had had Jim bristling like a porcupine; Hunter had only been allowed to enter the suite because he was Jim's half brother and had proven, as much as could be expected from a Bondless, immune to Blair as a Guide.

Despite interstellar distance, William Ellison had appeared on screen with the crystal clarity biotechnology provided thanks to the inherent superiority of the organic over the mechanic, in his private study on Eden. He spent most of the year on Federation, but his Birthday Ball was less than a week away and now needed his personal attention. William's usual expression of politic neutrality had become startled as he saw his two estranged sons, alike as to be twins, standing side by side. His surprise changed to grimness as Jim and Hunter related the current situation, and William had taken on the task of informing his friend of Ruis's death. Less than an hour later, William had contacted the _T'Pau -_ Alphonse was leaving orbit around Solaris and would come to Federation to collect his body.

Alphonse's Flagship was travelling at normal speed and neither it nor his entourage displayed any signs of formal mourning. William had told Alphonse the truth about Ruis's death, and pointed out the political realities of ensuring that truth was hidden from the universe at large. Alphonse would have arrived for the Ellison Ball by stopping briefly at Federation anyway, so nothing untoward was seen by his departure. Alphonse would arrive at Federation just as his son would be "tragically killed" in a Firefly accident in the Maenads asteroid belt. Fireflies were small, one or two-person space vehicles used for localised solar system space travel, for example between a planet and it's moon or a near neighbour. They had originally been invented to journey between Earth and Halfway Station and then Earth and Mars. However, their small size gave them extreme manoeuvrability and the ability to achieve high speeds which, combined with being cheap to buy or even build yourself, made them an adolescent favourite. Fireflies were the hot rods of this era, and they were used in interstellar versions of the drag racing teenagers used to do centuries before in the 1960s, only these hot rods raced in space or for more daring ones, through asteroid fields. Year in and year out, often fuelled by alcohol and/or unwise ingestion of questionable narcotics, young people died as their Firefly collided with a big space rock and the favourite won. The Maenads asteroid belt, whose formation basically made it like a big racing circuit in space, was infamous for Firefly racing.

Hunter and Jim had taken this back to the Dark Angels, who were relieved at Alphonse's understanding of the issues, but Blair found he had a sour taste in his mouth. A man had lost his son, after all.

Gage uttered a sharp cry, leaping up and dropping his coffee mug to hit the floor. "Trey!"

"What?" Saran surged to his feet, people around him also rising in consternation.

Before anyone could demand explanations, the door slid back and a young woman entered, her walk a sort of hurried trot in the manner of someone who is moving as fast as possible whilst trying not to alert others that she is doing so. She addressed Brigadier Jackson in a level but urgent tone. "Sir, Trey Logan is armed and he's shot Nelson Turner."

"_What!"_

Several voices chorused the question but Blair didn't really notice, as he had gone after Gage Butler who had rushed from the room. Pain stabbed through Blair's skull as he felt the violent roiling of Trey's mind; the empath was lashing out all over the place like a psychic electric storm. Dimly Blair was aware of the corridor being thronged with others that he instinctively recognised as empaths. The mental Summoning by so a powerful empath could not be denied by lesser empaths, even if they had wished to disobey. Even the Dark Guide fell the insistence of the psychic pull and Blair Sandburg was mentally shunted to one side as the Dark Guide personality surged to the fore.

Jim followed, his own instincts triggered by his Sentinel side recognising the emergence of the Dark Guide. Jim was aware absently that other Sentinels were present with him as he followed his Guide. They were following theirs, except for…Bondless ones… Without breaking his stride, Jim turned his head and bared his teeth in a hissing warning at Hunter and Larabee who were pacing him; they inclined their heads down slightly in acknowledgement of the superiority of a Dark Sentinel. In the background, the rational Jim Ellison persona was completely baffled. If anyone had said that Trey Logan – a trained police officer – would flip and go homicidal even under such stress as these circumstances, Jim would have laughed. What on earth could have set him off?

_**Five minutes earlier, coffee maker outside anteroom G37a…**_

Trey didn't simply freeze. He stopped. His hand curled around the handle of the coffee pot paused mid-motion; his lungs hesitated between one breath and the next. He was like a frozen frame on a vid. His complete absence of movement was what prevented the three men strolling past deep in conversation noticing that he was even there, despite being hyper alert to their surroundings, unaware of Trey's eyes, wide with horror, tracking their passing

Trey's vision swam, and his world tilted. It was as if some gigantic hand had picked the entire planet Federation up and just twisted it 90° to one side. His stomach seethed and roiled with nausea and his skin was cold as if someone had just drenched him in ice water. It took several minutes before Trey could think rationally again.

What few people passed paid no attention to him standing by the coffee machine; he looked like another Dark Angel. Those that did know his real reason for being there couldn't blame him for stocking up on caffeine; he probably needed all the help he could get. Placing the coffee pot back on the machine as if he had just poured himself another cup, Trey saw that the small outer office area was empty. Trey had been a cop for several years and knew that all agencies connected to law enforcement tended to operate in certain basically similar ways. Sliding open the desk drawer of the work station nearest to him, he was completely unsurprised to find a Palm Phaser laying on top of the stationery. The Palm Phaser was the modern version of a .22 Derringer handgun, such as were popular on Earth during the 19th and 20th Centuries. In a lot of period drama vids the Deep South Gambler character would have one spring loaded into a contraption tied to his arm because they were easily hidden under jacket sleeves. The Palm Phaser had only two settings – Stun and Kill, carried only four "shots" of energy and had a limited range – but it would suffice.

The Palm Phaser was totally concealed in his palm when Trey walked across the office as if to re-enter the anteroom with another cup of coffee; the male Dark Angel didn't even blink as a shot stunned him. Dropping his coffee and catching the collapsing form, Trey stepped smoothly back into the sanctuary of the anteroom doorway, taking his unconscious hostage with him. Trey raised the Phaser and pointed it directly at the heart of the female Dark Angel. "Get me Blair Sandburg and Gage Butler up here _now_." He reinforced his words with a strong mental push for her to obey, and simultaneously sent out a mental call to his friends…

**Dark Angel HQ anteroom G37a, planet Federation, right now… **

Well aware of the acute sensitivity of the situation and the fact that he had a Body Heir's corpse in the "basement", Brigadier Jackson had ensured the _T'Pau_'s contingent were in the most sparsely populated, and highest security protected, part of the HQ. Thus it was there were barely more than a score of people around the anteroom, and the vast majority of the building remained unaware of what was going on, and even some that did merely continued with their own tasks. A Dark Angel was not the type of personality to have hysterics even when such a situation as this occurred inside his or her own HQ; their fellow Angels on the scene were quite capable of dealing with the problem without having others gawking, rubber-necking or forming a peanut gallery.

Blair and Gage stepped inside the anteroom together. Trey was backed up against the far wall with the phaser pointing directly at the doorway. Lying on the floor in the recovery position was Nelson Turner, the steady rise and fall of his chest and flush to his cheeks indicating he was merely stunned and would soon wake up. The two empaths were aware of Jim, Gage, Saran, Jackson, Hunter and others fanning out either side of them, but nobody made any moves. At this range the Phaser's Kill setting would still be lethal and though Logan only had three shots left, nobody was particularly interested in being one of the unlucky trio.

Blair looked at Trey - he was no wild-eyed, sweating, ranting hysteric. Trey was deceptively relaxed yet battle-ready, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet and the hand holding the phaser was as solid as concrete. Apart from white lines around his mouth, he appeared completely normal to the casual observer, but Blair's own empathy saw clearly the storms of emotion, fragilely held back.

"How long, B.?" Trey's tone was light and soft, only a barely audible tremor indicating any stress.

"How long what?" Blair fought to infuse something of himself into the Dark Guide persona. Like the Dark Sentinel, a Dark Guide was a distilled, concentrated, purely instinctive essence whose reactions could be unpredictable. The last thing they needed right now was unpredictable. Blair's body hair was prickling as if from static electricity and his stomach churned with nebulous, prescient dread. A line from an old Earth soft rock song popped into his head…"_in a powder keg and giving off sparks…_" Yes indeed, unpredictable had to be avoided at all costs.

"The four of us – me, you, Gage, Simon – how long have we been trying to find The Man?"

"Years," put in Gage. "Ever since we rescued you, buddy."

"Haven't you ever thought it odd how he always managed to slip away? Kind of like mist. We could see him, but he just slipped through our fingers." Trey's tone was still casually conversational. "Makes sense when The Man – his real name is Kessler by the way - is protected by the most feared organisation in IFP history."

For fraction of a fraction of a second, it didn't register, didn't connect. Then a sort of ripple went through the gathered empaths. Not so much physical recoils or retreat, more a sort of emotional shockwave. Gage twisted his head to look at Race, his face not so much angry as pleading. "Tell me he's wrong."

Jackson spoke, his words level, "Leo Kessler doesn't work for the Dark Angels, but he has been a civilian consultant on a recurring basis for quite a few years."

The Dark Guide struggled to come forth, to punish by death these creatures who had harboured the monster; Blair closed his eyes and held on, speaking with hoarse stress, "We could never take The Man down, never make a solid connection with anyone. He was like smoke…"

"Now we know why." Gage's laugh was rasping humourless sound too loud for the room. "I knew there was something evil about him that day when he came into the medical room at the old Dark Angel HQ. I just couldn't put my finger on why he put me on edge. You and the doctor hustled him out of there pretty quick." Race paled at the thread of distrust underlying Gage's words as his Guide uttered the last sentence.

"Didn't you recognise him?" Saran put in.

Gage bared his teeth. "Trey is the only person to have seen Leo Kessler up close and personal – "

" – and he was using an assumed name, Leonard Keith." Trey's tone was flat

"Ashleigh, Lily," Jackson spoke to two female Dark Angels, the young, cute blond who looked no a day over eighteen and a brunette who looked only slightly older and equally as naïve. "I want Leo Kessler in an interrogation room within the next ten minutes. Maximum discretion."

"Both of you have to go now," Trey's addressed his two friends as if the three of them were completely alone, and though his tone didn't change, Blair's churning stomach suddenly went cold and still.

Gage went utterly white and stricken. "Trey –"

"Sentinels, you need to take your Guides away from here now," Trey instructed again, an undercurrent of urgency in his tone. Empaths could be rendered catatonic or even killed by the backlash of Death, especially if the deceased was a loved one.

Neither Jim nor Race moved; the anguish in the room was suffocating.

"Trey, it will be all right…" Saran kept his own voice calm and clear only with a major effort of will as realisation began to dawn all around of the empath's self-destructive intent.

Trey smiled, incredibly a genuine, gentle, sad smile. "I've lost the job I loved, killed a Body Heir, I'm a captured Wild Empath and the people who caught me have been harbouring the biggest mass murderer of empaths in history. I think "all right" has left the building. I think this is probably what they were imagining when they coined the phrase "gone to hell in a handbasket". I won't be your slave, Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonté's scapegoat or Leo Kessler's victim and the chances of me being able to return to active duty at any precinct this side of the Horsehead Nebula are slim to none." Trey swallowed and suddenly looked distraught instead of his previous façade of unnatural calm. Speaking directly to Blair and Gage he said regretfully, "I'm sorry, but it just hurts too much. I'm so tired of hurting."

Blair was unaware of the low keening sound he and the other empaths were making as he felt Trey's mind withdraw from his, Trey protecting him from the psychic devastation of impending mind-death.

"Trey!" Saran took a step forward, his tone sharp and desperate though knowing it futile. He could never reach Trey in time to prevent –

_Fzzhiszz._

Pure reflex enabled Saran to catch Trey before the young empath crumpled to the floor, his conscious mind only catching up to the distinctive sound of a stunner as he pulled Trey to him. His expression one of bland neutrality, Chris Larabee ignored their stares as he calmly put his own stunner back in his pocket, then turned his ice-green gaze upon Hunter, whose hand was under his jacket, wrapped around his own half-drawn weapon. Hunter gazed back steadily for a long moment, then put his gun back in it's holster and removed his hand from his suit jacket.

"This has gone far enough." Saran's voice was arctic. He looked at Jackson, "Can you contain Kessler?"

"Certainly."

"Good. I'm going to bond with my Guide and I'm going to find out exactly what the _hell_ is going on here – not necessarily in that order. I need the nearest bonding suite, please – and a medic."

Understanding showing plainly in his eyes, Jackson nodded assent.

Trey wasn't a lightweight, but Saran found him worryingly easy to carry; clearly Trey hadn't been eating as he should, something that was going to change from now on. There was suddenly a dearth of Bondless Sentinels in Saran's vicinity, indeed of many people at _all_ in Saran's vicinity, which did not surprise him in the least. Standing at the door of the bonding suite was a doctor whose nametag read McCoy. Being extremely sensible, McCoy made no attempt to assist Saran as the Sentinel took the hypospray from him and awkwardly injected himself then Trey with one hand while supporting Trey's unconscious form against his chest with the other arm. McCoy accepted the hypospray back, then promptly stood aside as the door slid back and Saran stepped into the bonding suite, not even glancing back.

The door locked automatically at Saran's voice command and double security locked again when he gave the code that ensured only he could open it. The suite was large with an en suite bathroom whose luxury bordered on the sybaritic; the carpet was deep and soft, the décor in soft complementary pastels that soothed the eye, while soundproofing and odour filters ensured that nothing would upset or spike the Sentinel's senses during the crucial bonding period. Saran ignored it all as he placed Trey on the bonding "platform", which resembled nothing so much as a nest, with big pillows, cushions and thick quilts piled on it.

Taking a step back, Saran closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath and focussed all his formidable willpower on subduing his most dangerous opponent – himself. The Sentinel persona was already pushing forward, aggressive, restless. Once sure he'd got a grip on his instincts, Saran opened his eyes and released the breath. The hypospray's anti-suppressant cleanser would remove all the suppressants in both his and Trey's body, but with the "rebound" side-effect, like a rubber ball bouncing back faster than it is thrown, the bonding urge that had been held down by the suppressants would violently surge up with artificial intensity. In such a bonding frenzy, bordering virtually on psychosis, Sentinel and Guide could easily injure or kill the other. Already Saran was experiencing sudden hot and then cold fluctuations of body temperature, his skin was prickly and extra-sensitive and his fingertips tingled with the need to touch his Guide.

Trey gave a muted groan, but didn't move and Saran began to prepare. Thehypospray would take longer to work on Trey due to the effects of the stunner, but he would come around soon. Saran grabbed the pillows, cushions and quilts and hauled them into a pile before placing the biggest cushions and pillows in the corner of the platform where the suite's two back walls joined. Then he bundled the remainder, all bar one quilt, in a wide semi-circle around, creating a comfortable, secure nest. Sliding off the platform again, Saran kicked off his shoes, stripped off his socks and then removed his jacket and shirt so his torso was bare. Saran repeated the procedure with Trey, who was now twitching as he began to come out of his unconscious state, but he ignored his Sentinel side's urging and left both his own and Trey's pants on. The exchange in the anteroom had made it pretty obvious to all concerned what Trey must have suffered because of Leo Kessler, and coming around to find himself nude in the presence of a Sentinel in Bonding Heat would probably be a sure fire way of doing nothing but terrify Trey.

Carefully Saran bundled Trey into the thick remaining quilt in a such a way that the empath was snug, but could still have total freedom of arm movement; again, coming to and finding himself swaddled and unable to move would not do Trey much good psychologically. Manoeuvring himself and the bundled up Trey back to his corner, Saran settled himself comfortably on the cushions against the back wall, then parted his legs in V-shape and pulled Trey in the quilt up against his torso so Trey's head rested against his chest before tucking the quilt in so they were now cocooned in soft warmth. Trey's skin was cool against Saran's exertion warmed chest, but his heartbeat and pulse were steady and growing stronger. Wrapping one arm around Trey's shoulders, Saran gave in to temptation as he stroked Trey's hair with his other hand, lowering his face and rubbing his cheek against the silky dark strands, inhaling the scent of his Guide and waiting with ruthlessly self-controlled patience.

Trey snuffled and twitched, blinking blearily as he pulled away slightly from the warm pillow and tried to assimilate his current surroundings, looking up at Saran with confused, innocent bewilderment. Saran didn't release his grip on Trey, but kept it light as the younger man blinked rapidly. Memory flooded back, stark terror flashed in Trey's expressive eyes and an involuntarily shiver went through his body. Trey dropped his eyes from Saran's face, interlocking his fingers and staring at them as if they held all the secrets of the universe, his body tense. Yet again Saran was reminded of the puppy his cousins had tormented.

Gently Saran pulled Trey back against his chest, stroking the fringe of hair out of Trey's eyes. He didn't know what would work, so he settled for a direct, sincere plea. "Tell me, Trey. Please?"

Trey remained silent, staring at his hands and Saran felt a hitherto unknown emotion rise up in his own breast – inadequacy. He was his mother's firstborn, her favourite child, and the responsible one. His semi-siblings had never had any qualms about asking for his opinions; his employees and subordinates had never had any nerves about asking for his direction. Saran realised he had no idea how to reassure and draw out Trey.

"T-T-Tracey." The word, whispered against Saran's chest, was so soft it was barely more than a whisper of sound that even Saran's turned-up Sentinel hearing had to focus on to hear. "M-m-my name isn't really Trey Logan. I'm T-T-Tracey Logan…the Fourth."

With perfect recall and an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the Great & Good in the Inhabited Galaxies, it took Saran barely an eighth of a second before his mind's eye presented himself with the correct ID and a mental image. All the discrepancies about Trey being able to speak pure Earth French while being the child of asteroid miners were suddenly cleared up. "As in Tracey Logan of Logan Industries, head of Associate House Logan?"

"Yes, G-G-randfather," Trey whispered again.

"You don't favour him," Saran commented gently.

Trey gave a hiccoughing chuckle and a weak blink-and-you-miss-it-smile, but more importantly he finally raised his head and looked at Saran instead of cowering. "H-He is pretty hard to miss." Trey gave a little sigh, beginning to rub his thumbs together nervously. "He – he's actually my great-grandfather, but everyone calls him Grandfather…or Sir." This time the smile didn't quite come off.

"Tell me," Saran encouraged again.

Once again Trey found his hands fascinating. "Grandfather's a workaholic. They'll find him dead at his desk, I'm sure. He was orphaned by the age of eight and grew up on the frontier worlds with various relatives. They were a big, brawling sprawling clan and he'd been around most of the Inhabited Galaxies by the time he was twelve. Grandfather was a self-made millionaire at twenty and a multi-billionaire by twenty-four. He still works fifteen hour days, but he seems to thrive on it."

Trey fell silent again, but Saran didn't push; any pressure would only rebound.

"When he married my great-grandmother genetic engineering was still quite erratic so near the Frontier Worlds and uterine replicators had a nasty habit of suffering power failures at critical junctures. They did the basics for their first child: no physical defects, high IQ, business oriented, then reinserted the embryo _in utero. _My grandfather, Tracey Logan II was a body birth. He was a carbon copy of Grandfather. All their children were…" Trey's tone became sly, "even the girls."

Saran obligingly chuckled. "I'm willing to bet a flurry of cosmetic nasal surgery for your grand-aunts?"

"Oh yeah." Trey snickered. "My grandfather was just the sort of heir Grandfather had dreamed of, same when grandfather married my grandmother. My father, Tracey Logan III, and my uncles and aunts were all like Grandfather in looks and mostly in personality. They all made money for Logan Industries hand over fist and produced the next generation of peas-in-a-pod Logans. So, when father married mother…"

Once again Trey trailed off and Saran waited until he restarted, noting that the stutter was back. "N-n-nobody even thought about advanced genetic design. Uterine replicators were standard by then and Grandfather hadn't made his money by frittering it on unnecessary frills. G-G-Grandfather ended up being a-a-arrested at the hospital when I was born."

"Arrested?" Saran repeated, feeling a trickle of alarm. All paediatric medical facilities, particularly maternity hospitals, had ferocious security measures.

Trey gave another weak chuckle. "I-I-t m-m-m-made the local papers. My father was the eldest of Tracey Logan II's children and the heir, but the last to have an heir of his own. So Grandfather came with him and my mother to the hospital the day I was taken out the replicator, but they got held up in traffic so the midwife had already taken me out and put me in the newborn ward." Trey again looked at his hands, which he was continuously rubbing together in what Saran realised was a warning flag of deep-rooted anxiety and distress, along with the stutter, which itself indicated Trey was broaching a subject unpleasant or distressing. "G-G-Grandfather went to the ward, but he would never admit to needing ocular readjustment for short-sight due to his age, and he couldn't r-r-read the n-n-n-ame tags. In the cradle next to mine was a big, red-haired Irish baby bellowing it's lungs out and Grandfather just a-a-a-assumed –"

"Oh my," Saran put in, hoping to elicit a response.

He was rewarded by another tentative grin from Trey, and for a precious instant the two men smirked at each other before Trey took a breath and continued on, "He got nearly to the entrance lobby before the alarms sounded. The O'Quinlans were pure Earth Irish back to the High King Niall or Brian Boruma or whatever. Saoirse was the first girl born into the family in five generations and she had nine older brothers. There was nearly a toe-to-toe fight between Grandfather and half her family; he came within inches of being hauled off to jail before it was all sorted out. I-I-I d-d-d-don't s-s-s-s-suppose I c-c-can b-b-b-blame him. It w-w-w-was an easy m-mistake, c-c-considering…"

Instinctively Saran moved his hand and began to massage the nape of Trey's neck as the younger man's stutter became so pronounced and his voice trailed off. Unfortunately, he could imagine the fury and chaos of the hospital scene all to well as his memory reproduced an image of the formidable, original Tracey Logan. Six feet six inches tall without shoes, a rangy mass of solid muscle topped off with a wild shock of carrot-hued hair and piercingly blue eyes set either side a huge hooked beak of a nose that, like the rest of his weathered skin, was a mass of conspicuous brown freckles. Saran had met the original Logan; the old man didn't speak, he barked out words like weapons and as far as he was concerned, there were two viewpoints, his and the wrong one. Saran had no doubt that Trey had been a tiny baby, a little scrap of humanity quiet even then; it must have been a hell of a shock for the old man to be confronted by this tiny kitten of a human being with soot-black hair, alabaster skin and honey-brown eyes.

"My mother and father separated a few months later." Trey's voice was stronger now, though still quiet and curiously unemotional. "It was an arranged marriage for a business alliance between House Logan and Name House Duvall; my mother is Melissa Duvall. She and my father were both content with the agreement, but it never occurred to her father or Grandfather to check that my mother's life plan for _herself_ matched _theirs_ for her."

"She left?" Saran asked the question gently, deliberately omitting "you" from the end of his question.

"O-O-Oh yes, but she b-b-b-blackmailed Grandfather in the process." Trey's tone of voice was a clear mixture of admiration for anybody with that much audacity and a lingering bitterness that told Saran without words exactly who had ended up paying the bill for Melissa's actions.

"How?"

"Melissa knew my father was a step up the social ladder from Name House to Associate House. She loved being the hostess of House Logan's heir. Her family and mine had her life as the next gracious matron to join House Logan all mapped out, but Melissa had no intention of staying in our hick little backwater solar system of low-technology Frontier Worlds, and Grandfather made a mistake. Up until a baby is twelve months old, chromosome scans are illegal unless for medical purposes and require parental permission and Melissa found out that my Grandfather had had me scanned at three weeks of age to determine if I was my father's son. Before twelve months, there's a microscopic chance of immune system damage to the infant, and Melissa hit my father with divorce papers. When Grandfather tried to play hardball with Melissa's alimony demands –"

"She told him she'd got the goods on him for the chromosome scan and the scandal rag tabloids would be the first to know unless he paid for her to live the lifestyle to which she intended to become accustomed?" Saran finished.

Trey looked at him with wide eyes and spoke in a tone of mock awe, "Wow, so that's why you're the LEO Commissioner."

"Not just a pretty face." Saran preened, slightly over the top, but he was willing to do anything to bolster Trey's confidence and give his Guide a sense of safety. Unless he missed his guess, they were swimming directly into shark-infested, storm lashed emotional waters and Saran knew he needed to be ready. If he said the wrong thing, reacted the wrong way, Trey would fight him instead of submitting as his Guide and that option was unacceptable. Again he tamped down on the agitated Sentinel that wanted to bond now and talk later.

Trey was speaking again, explaining how his father had retained sole custody after his parents' divorce, his manner casual as if speaking about a "nodding acquaintance". "I've seen Melissa a few times in the last few years – she's sometimes come through Halfway Station en route to various places."

Saran said nothing because he could find nothing to say. The Vicereine of Olban would win first prize in any competition for the maternally undemonstrative, but despite this, Saran had never ever had any doubt that his mother loved him completely. The picture of casual disregard painted by Trey's words was utterly incomprehensible to Saran. He knew his mother would kill for him, die for him or any of her children. She would obliterate entire solar systems without batting an eye in defence of any of her children; it was inconceivable that she would wilfully abandon any child of hers.

"I was an empath from birth," Trey admitted, "but I couldn't articulate it until I was about four or five, and by then I was sensible enough to keep my mouth shut." Once again bitterness tinged his tone. "When I six, Grandfather arranged my father's second marriage…" Trey's voice became sarcastic, "…Joan is six feet high and nearly as wide with green eyes and tomato-red hair. Their son weighed in at ten pounds. They called him Terry."

"You're not close to your brother?" Saran ventured carefully, acutely aware of the way Trey always referred to his male parent as "father" and not "dad", and how Terry was "their son" and not "my brother".

Trey shrugged. "I never saw him much. I was seven when he was born and a few weeks later…Grandfather's lawyer was going over some old Logan documents and came across some family holographs; one of them was of Grandfather's father's brother Todd Logan. Grandfather had never known him because he died at fifteen in an epidemic of Meridian Fever on Mars before the Logans left for the Frontier Worlds. It was a bad outbreak, nearly 10,000 died and almost everyone on the colonies had lost somebody."

"Why did that upset Grandfather?" Asked Saran perceptively.

"Todd Logan was my mirror image – or I was his, genealogically speaking. Put Todd's holograph and me side by side and you thought you were looking at identical twins. Grandfather had always taken refuge in blaming the Duvall family for my looks, no red hair, no freckles, no height and brown eyes instead of blue. After Terry was born…" Trey shrugged again, "Deep, deep down inside, Grandfather had this like, little _fantasy_, that the chromosome scan results were a mistake and that Terry was the real heir. He never even admitted it to himself, but it was there."

Saran allowed his hands to trace soothing strokes up and down Trey's arms. He couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like for Trey, cursed due to his empathy by being able to see the truth of his family's feelings behind every spoken lie or insincere facial expression.

"The holograph put paid to his daydream and to his being able to blame the Duvalls because I didn't look like a "real" Logan," Trey explained. "A few weeks after that, Terry was about three or four months old I guess, Grandfather decided to send me to boarding school – Bryston Academy."

Saran bit down on several vituperative descriptions regarding the old man's malice and spite towards a defenceless child whose only crime was not to be a carrot-topped clone of the old man with a nose like a vulture's beak. Saran had been to boarding school – all his family had – but not until he was eleven and then his mother had given each of her children the same get out clause. She wanted them to try boarding school; she hoped they liked it, but boarding school was not for every child, and if they decided they would prefer not to do it, she was more than happy for them to attend a regular school if that was their preference. Byston Academy's avowed aim was to be a combination of Earth schools like Eton and Harrow and boot camp, to produce graduates with "brains the size of planets and the bodies of Special Forces soldiers." For a seven year old, powerful empath, already rejected by his family, it must have been nightmarish. "Was it very bad?"

"Bad?" Trey looked momentarily confused, then his face lit up with a smile so happy that it went straight through Saran's heart. "No, no…it was wonderful. I loved school! It was the happiest place I ever was…except for when I was Halfway being a cop-" Trey broke off his expression suddenly wary as he glanced at Saran, the man responsible for him no longer being a cop.

Saran decided to address the cop issue later, and focussed on the school. "It was good?"

Trey smiled in reminiscence. "I was scared. It was so big and built out of stone. There weren't many other seven year olds there and at first I was lonely, but the library was great. Then there was a boy a few years above me – Steel Kyros, the son of _the _Kyros."

Saran nodded. The Kyros and his son owned vast tracts of known space and were making the Frontier Worlds an interesting place to live. The LEO Commission had great interest in Kyros, but his son was an unknown quantity. "He was friendly?"

Trey nodded, then looked around as if afraid that someone would overhear him, a highly unlikely event considering the risk of being ripped apart by an angry Sentinel should the person be discovered. Leaning against Saran's chest, Trey confessed, "We started the Bryston Quidditch team together. He was Captain and I was the Seeker; he never cared that I was younger and he said that being smaller was an advantage in a Seeker. We won nearly every game we played. We got detention forever when the staff found out, but it's an official game there now."

"I bet it is," Saran laughed. "I was Captain of my Quidditch team for four years, and we won the Hermoine Cup twice. Wait a minute, wasn't Steel Kyros the kid who wrote that letter to _The Times_ when the Moral Readership Caucus was going to ban the Rowling books and movies because they told kids how to play the game?"

"Yeah. He let me read it before he sent it," Trey confirmed. "That's when the teachers found out about it and gave us detention, but it was great."

Saran snorted. "It was bloody brilliant, especially for a teenager. I remember reading it. At the start it seemed like he agreed with the MRC until he started on about how irresponsible Rowling had been when writing the series not to consider that two hundred years after she was dead a bunch of bored colonist kids would have the technology to make Quidditch real, and how absolutely dangerous she'd been in naming the lead female character Hermione. Made the MRC pretty much a laughing stock."

Trey grinned again and Saran smiled down at him. Along with Firefly racing, Pod racing and sundry other recreations and sports, Quidditch was amongst the many fictional pastimes invented by an author or movie that had become a reality due to modern technology centuries after the original creator was dead. It would probably have been a mayfly sport, a passing fad, had it not been for it's almost prescient perfect suitability for places like the Frontier Worlds, pioneer planets newly colonised by humans. Colony outfits had only room for necessities, not luxuries and not only was it far too expensive to turf ground and erect stadiums, but the land was far too valuable for producing food or buildings to waste on a football field or sports track – in the opinion of the adult colonists at least. Their children were not so sanguine without any recreational outlet, since going out to play on a largely unexplored colony planet could be a death sentence.

Quidditch had been made real by two twelve-year-old twin sisters, Hermione and Hypatia Copeland, now dead themselves over a century. Too young to legally do real work for the colony and fed up of being stuck with make-do jobs to keep them out from under their parents feet, Hermione had retreated to the colony library and made a fateful choice – instructing the library to download into her palm reader any fiction stories in which the lead female character was named Hermione. The rest was history; it had taken the sisters all of two minutes to grasp the opportunity presented by Quidditch, which they had quickly shared with their own circle of friends who equally loved it. It was extremely fast, very dangerous and on a planet where every millimetre of land was at a premium, a totally aerial sport was ideal. It took maybe an hour to attach nacelles to one end of an old branch and plonk a saddle on it; the "wizard" robes the kids had played in were ideal for concealing remote steering mechanisms and the "bristle twigs" could be replaced by antennae for a protective force shield. As long as they had somewhere for the hoops to go, Quidditch could be played anywhere on the planet. Every so often there were moves to ban the dangerous, fast moving sport, but by its very nature it was hard to locate those breaking any ban. It could be played over mountains or above forests, and the voluminous robes traditionally worn by the players not only disguised them, but enabled them to secret jamming devices and other toys on their person.

Trey looked down at his hands again nervously, but Saran had to bite back a purr of satisfaction. Trey was leaning against him now; he was almost boneless. It was an unconscious but profound revelation of trust.

"T-T-The first time it came to term break, there was a measles outbreak." Trey glanced up at Saran as if seeking reassurance. "I contacted home and suggested I stay at school, because Terry was only a baby. The next term break, I pretended I'd been invited to stay with a school friend."

"What did you really do?"

Trey shrugged. "Stayed in school. It was wonderful – really. I used to go and read in one of the big armchairs in the library, and Mrs Gowan the Housekeeper used to bring me tea and sandwiches. After a while the excuses got easier on both sides. I loved school, loved being there. It was the happiest time of my life, except –"

He fell silent again, but Saran knew the ending, except for when Trey had been a police officer on Halfway Station, a life Saran had ended for him. Soothingly Saran again brushed back Trey's hair fringe out of his eyes, grateful that Trey had had some happiness in his childhood, and also that the Academy teachers had been perceptive enough to realise that Trey was a lot better off in school instead of being forcibly repatriated to his "home" by some misguided social worker type. Saran steeled himself; it was time for major unpleasantness, unless he missed his guess. "How did you meet Blair and Gage?"

A shiver went through Trey's entire frame and he pressed himself closer to Saran, as if seeking shelter. He didn't stutter, but his voice was soft and fragile. "I'd never had any problem hiding my empathy. I'd been doing it since the cradle, but when I was thirteen, well, some of the other kids started to come online. Some were empaths and some had heightened senses, and the Careers Tutor started testing for ones and twos, those kids who wanted to be accountants and stuff. But some of the heightened sense kids were real Sentinels, and they started…you know…"

Saran did know. A person had to be an Empathy Rating of 11 or above to be considered a "Guide strength" empath, but ironically whilst most people did their best _not_ to be part of that band, the lowest Ratings - 1 and 2 - were highly desirable. ER1 and 2 people had just enough talent to be able to detect deceit or distress in people, but not so much that it impacted negatively on their own lives. They were in high demand as magistrates, accountants, IRS auditors, counsellors, therapists and other such careers.

Unfortunately, Sentinels didn't make any such fine distinctions. People with heightened physical senses were genetically predisposed to seek out people who were empaths, regardless of whether that empath was an ER1 or an ER20. Likewise, empaths were drawn towards people with heightened senses, whether those people were merely Sentinel Sensitives or full-blown Alphas.

Trey's whisper was so soft that even Saran's hearing had to strain to hear it. "At first I could hide…I'd been doing it all my life, but it got more and more difficult…"

He was twisting his hands tighter now, leaving red marks and Saran carefully covered Trey's hands with his own, stilling their agitated motion. On IFP worlds, a lot of Sentinels and Guides were identified at birth and trained from infancy. He himself had been known to be a Sentinel since coming out the Uterine Replicator and his mother had arranged the finest Sentinel-tailored education for him. However, a lot of the time the child showed no ability under testing until they hit puberty, or sometimes until they were in their early twenties or thirties when a crisis triggered their abilities. Out on the Frontier Worlds and the non-IFP planets, testing was again a lot laxer than that.

Saran had been authoritatively told that puberty was the most traumatic time for a previously "numb" child to develop either heightened senses or empathy, to the extent that medical professionals increasingly advocated either triggering a suspected sentinel/empath child's abilities before adolescence, or else suppressing them until after the age of twenty. Children had enough problems with growth spurts, rampant acne and adolescent hormones without poor kid A suddenly finding he could hear X masturbating five floors down, or kid B being swamped by the anguish and despair Y was feeling over her parents' messy divorce.

Saran's own Sentinel senses had actually increased during puberty – again something quite common - and Saran could easily tell that Trey's must have likewise moved up a gear or two. Only being forced to hide his empathy from his family from toddlerhood had saved Trey from exposure, and he wouldn't have been able to keep it up for long. An empath as strong as Trey amongst a bunch of "numbs", sensitives and budding full Alpha Sentinels would have stood out like a sunflower in a field of daisies.

Trey was explaining, "The Sentinel kids started being real possessive about the empath ones, following them around, stalking them, intimidating them. It wasn't just the school, either. We used to get older people too, Sentinels in their late teens, early twenties, sometimes adult men and women; they used to loiter around like wolves watching a herd of deer. There were fights and stuff." Taking a deep breath, "Leo Kessler helped me at first. He got me suppressants – for a price. But after a while he said I was too powerful an empath and if I didn't want to end up forcibly bonded to some of the Sentinels hanging around, the best thing would be for me to get out of Dodge. His "cousin" could get me on a fast transport out of the solar system … for a price."

Trey vented a bitter laugh. "I never suspected a thing. I was just so desperate to get away. I could feel the emotions of hundreds of people all around me, the suppressants made me ill, and Sentinels – I couldn't deal with their hunger. It ate away at my mental shields like acid. I just wanted to escape. Kessler fooled my family into thinking I was still at school and the Academy into thinking I'd finally gone home for a vacation; by the time anyone figured out that something was wrong the trail would have been cold for months. I went out of school one evening and met Kessler in town in the guise of going to a club and that was it. I felt a sharp pain in my back and woke up to find myself centre stage at a sex slave auction."

Saran wrapped both his arms tightly around his Guide. "You were a virgin?"

"No!"

Under any other circumstances, Trey's indignant rebuttal and the way his head snapped up so he could glare at Saran, making the latter jerk his chin up, would have been funny.

Saran made conciliatory noises, ensuring he kept his face clear of his true thoughts. He would have bet every last penny of his considerable fortune that Trey's lack of virginity was a mere physical technicality. Someone with Trey's naturally shy nature coupled with the need to protect his secret would have made him the very last type to womanise. Saran had no doubt that when Kessler kidnapped him, the sum total of Trey's sexual experience would have been about one-and-a-half-minutes in the back of a car or a frantic fumble at some party. However, one thing he did understand was male pride and for Trey to have to admit that he was still virginal in all _significant_ ways if not the biological sense was not an issue worth pursuing.

"I'll need to know their names," Saran said gently, but immovably.

Trey looked at him.

"The names of the people that…hurt you." Saran inserted the euphemism for the uglier truth; he was already making plans for the mayhem that would be unleashed once he had those names.

Perhaps some of his lethal intent leaked through in his eyes and voice, for Trey's eyes widened fractionally and he a made hesitant "ungh" sound. Saran dipped his head to inhale his Guide's scent on the young man's silky hair, carefully broadcasting protectiveness, devotion and appeal. Seasoned Guides found it hard to resist such blandishments; Trey who was already beginning to flush up with Bonding Heat now the effects of the stunner were wearing off, had no chance.

"I-I-I was l-lucky." This time Trey's stammer was not fear, but because he was finding it hard to resist the urge to rub his face catlike against the broad, warm chest that supported his cheek. "I – have Sentinel allergies." He looked in trepidation at Saran for some would call this a defect.

In his mind's eye, Saran could see faintly glowing silver tendrils stir and begin to reach out psychically towards the deep, still quiescent lavender-coloured essence that was Trey and he promptly eased more reassurance and affection towards his Guide. Sentinel sensitivities were not as problematic as they once had been centuries ago, as the legendary Guide Diaries showed, but there was still need for awareness. All Sentinels had their own peculiar metabolic quirks that meant certain substances needed to be approached with caution and treated with respect. Sedatives and stimulants particularly required judicious handling.

Bolstered by Saran's subtle encouragement, Trey began to speak, "M-m-my f-f-f-first o-o-o-"

"Sshh, sshh." Saran hugged him close, immeasurably distressed by the return of the stammer more violently than ever; his own upset broadcasting to Trey.

Instinctively Trey tried to comfort his Sentinel, sending out waves of reassurance and soothing calm, unaware that the lilac/lavender tendrils from his own mind were stirring for the first time and reaching out across the void to the glowing silver. In the far corner of the room, unnoticed by both men for the moment, a snow leopard was growing ever less translucent and more solid as it nuzzled and petted a very small, extraordinarily rare African Black-footed Wildcat, who bore the lavish affection with stoic patience.

" 'S'Okay," Trey finally murmured, taking a deep breath and letting it out again in a gust. "I think I need…to say…anyway, m-my first owner couldn't touch me, b-b-b-because the drugs didn't make me quiet. They just made me s-sick. Even the m-most disgusting p-p-pervert tends to lose the urge w-when their victim is projectile vomiting over e-everything in range." Despite what must be horrific memories, Trey managed a ghost of a smile. "My second owner…I…_killed._" His voice trembled then strengthened. "The drug didn't s-s-sedate me, it just made me want to throw up. H-He didn't bother to tie me and I'd managed to get a r-r-razor from the bathroom. When he – when he – c-cr-crawled on top o-o-of me I sss-lit his throat – and – c-castrated him. Hedidn'tdieIjustcuthisvocalchordsandsohebledtodeathhe wastryingtoscreamthewholetimeIwascuttingoffhisballsbuthecouldn't." Trey uttered the last in a single gasp that was basically just one word.

Saran bit down the urge to assure Trey that the younger man had just saved him the trouble of killing the bastard, but knew that was hardly the right approach at this juncture – slow and easy. "Did you escape to Blair and Gage?"

Trey shook his head negatively. "N-no. H-his wife made out he'd died of a heart attack and sold me on. My f-fifth owner was the one who sold me back to Kessler; Kessler w-was furious because the guy insisted on Kessler buying me as if I was f-f-fresh because of all the trouble I'd caused. Word got around that I'd managed to kill my owner and that made a l-lot of people nervous. But Kessler was t-t-too s-s-stupid to learn the lesson; he just hit me with a hypospray of sedative that he should have known wouldn't work then threw me in a cage. He had a shipment of empaths for the vivisection labs and I was going to be one of them. Our cages were in a warehouse when Blair, Gage and Simon came bursting in with the rest of the Underground Railroad. All I was doing was puking in a corner of the cage so when one of the goons came past, I grabbed him." Trey took another breath. "Pulled him back against the bars, snapped his neck, grabbed his gun and shot out the lock of my cage, then went to help. Kessler got away, but I'd been conscious and aware the whole time he was holding a business meeting with the buyers, so I could ID everyone. I helped Gage with one of the gunmen and he and Blair helped me get back in the world."

Saran read between the lines; he had no doubt that "helping Gage" meant the youth had saved Butler's life, probably at incredible risk to his own. "They got you into Halfway PD then?" Saran asked.

Trey shook his head, his expression becoming a sort of wary embarrassment that Saran had mentally flagged because it was the one he got when talking about his so-called family, Associate House Logan.

"N-No, I was only s-seventeen at the time. They took me back to Earth. Blair got me a job at the university and he got me in with a r-really good counsellor. S-she w-was helping me with…everything…"

"What happened?" Saran couldn't help the edge to his voice; he had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Grandfather came."

Two words, so simple, so bare, yet so revealing. Saran could imagine big, hook-nosed Tracey Logan I bulling in and causing hurt where there had been healing.

"H-he took me h-h-home." Trey shrugged. "Not even Simon could prevent it. I was still a minor at the time, and under psychiatric care to boot. It would have seemed eminently reasonable to any judge that I be cared for by my family, especially since Blair nor Gage had much money, and Simon had a wife and son to support…"

Saran waited in dread.

Trey shivered again. "It was very…difficult…for them. There were rumours flying about everywhere and Grandfather was embarrassed by the media attention…"

Only by a major effort of will did Saran prevent himself from exploding with fury. _Difficult for them?_ _Embarrassed?_ What the hell was wrong with these people? When barely more than a child, Trey had been kidnapped and repeatedly raped and tortured – and old man Logan's focus of concern had been the modern equivalent of "what will the neighbours think"!

Mistaking Saran's silent shocked rage for encouragement to continue, Trey admitted, "G-Grandfather forbade any counselling; he said it w-w-was a family matter. N-nobody would talk to me, they didn't know what to say…Joan didn't want me near Terry in case I had…you know…infections. W-W-When I'd been m-m-missing for two years, G-Grandfather had me declared l-l-legally dead. When they found out I was on Earth, Grandfather was in the m-m-m-iddle of changing Terry's name to Tracey Logan IV and making him the heir. I-It m-m-messed everything up when they found me…"

Saran swallowed a solid ball of absolute rage that had lodged in his throat; forget bonding, the Sentinel was screaming to kill. House Logan had barely waited for the dust to settle before moving on, and they hadn't even had the courtesy to make Terry Logan into Tracey Logan V, which would have at least acknowledged that there had been a fourth – _I bet it was "difficult" for them,_ Saran snarled savagely to himself, _having your inconvenient relative turn up again just when you're so close to airbrushing him from existence must be a real spanner in the works._

"I spent most of my time in my suite on Grandfather's estate anyway." Trey shrugged. "I didn't want to be around people, couldn't cope with their emotions. I had good food, comfortable shelter and all the books and vids I could want. I didn't want to be around people anyway." He sighed, "I suppose I would have just drifted and drifted like that for years, but when I was twenty-two, something happened. Grandfather had a health scare. It turned out to be heartburn, but when he had what he thought was a heart attack he was piloting his personal lightflyer, with my grandfather, father and Terry on board. It was a major scare – he nearly crashed."

_I bet it was a scare for the old thug!_ Saran could well imagine old man Logan's panic as he must have thought, at least for a few seconds, that he was about to kill himself and all the supposed "real men" in his family, leaving House Logan under the control of a defective heir.

"They knew I'd been kidnapped for empathy, but they didn't really get how strong I was," Trey was saying. "I'd always been able to come off at around ER8 and my family didn't really understand. Grandfather wanted me to agree to go to a psychiatric hospital and to cede my right as heir to Terry."

"What did you do?"

"I agreed. If Leo Kessler could disappear me for nearly half a decade, then I could certainly disappear myself permanently. Basically, I just worked both sides. I relinquished my heirship rights to Terry and agreed to become a permanent resident at the Bellevue Care Home Grandfather had chosen. I hacked into Grandfather's secretary's computer and diverted everything via my own PC so I could control the communications. I presented myself as Grandfather's secretary and tightbeamed Bellevue with a holograph of a dead cousin and claimed he was Tracey Logan IV. I asked Grandfather for a lump sum to get myself settled in and took it with me when we went to Bellevue, making sure I wore my best suit. Grandfather let me out at the gates, we said an awkward goodbye and he left after making sure I was walking up the drive. I put a wad of money in my jacket pocket, threw my holdall under some bushes and just walked into Bellevue as Tracey Logan's secretary. I explained to the manager that the family had decided to continue caring for "me" at home as my condition had suddenly begun to improve and gave him the cash with the explanation that Mr Logan appreciated Bellevue's efforts and it was an apology for taking up their time. Then I left, retrieved the holdall and just walked to the local spaceport where I got on a series of shuttles out of the solar system. I had enough cash to buy me enough temporary ID to get to Earth and find Blair. Simon wangled me into the Police Academy and both he and Gage wrote me references when I graduated to go to Halfway Station. Thanks to those old movies, Trey Logan is still a common enough name that nobody would think to look for Tracey Logan IV under it. Bellevue thought I was at the Logan estate, my family thought I was at Bellevue. To be honest, I'm not sure my disappearance has been uncovered even now." Trey finally wound down and slumped against Saran, as if exhausted by the verbal purge.

For a long moment, Saran just hugged Trey, thanking God for giving him such internal strength. Trey had suffered so much hurt and pain, yet had found the will and emotional strength to hold on when all he must have wanted to do was crawl into a corner and curl up. It would take time and probably professional counselling, but Saran swore he would heal the damage inflicted on his Guide.

He tilted Trey's chin up with two fingers, his tone gentle with affection, "We're going to bond, my Guide, then I'm going to destroy those that hurt you."

Trey blushed to his hair roots. Now that the effects of the stunner were long gone, every inch of his own body itched with the craving to bond with the Sentinel, but he looked at Saran with shy eyes and his voice was a mere whisper of nervousness, "Y-Y-You're the LEO Commissioner…you could have a proper Guide…someone from a respectable family…an IFP empath."

Saran spat out several strong epitaphs, basically consigning respectable IFP empaths to eternal damnation.

"What about your mother…and your aunt…the _Matriarch_…_" _Trey faltered at the prospect.

"They will adore you," Saran stated with total confidence – they'd better. Abruptly he slid himself down so that Trey, distracted, was sprawled on top of him as he lay on his back. "Bond, Guide." It was a low growl as Saran finally let the impatient Sentinel come out to play, but only a little. There would be no pouncing and pinning; Trey needed to know he was in control here.

Tentatively, Trey relaxed against Saran; though equally flushed, somehow contact with the other's skin soothed Trey's own irritated flesh. He could hear Saran's heart beating more rapidly than usual against his ear as he laid his cheek against the warm ribcage, could feel the controlled strength in the muscles flexing underneath his body. In his mind's eye, Trey saw glowing silver strands reaching out to enwrap the lavender-hued threads reaching out from his own psyche, but the silver did not engulf or smother the lavender tendrils. It slid under and around them, supporting, cushioning and cradling them as Trey's mind felt the devotion and caring the Sentinel felt for his Guide.

Reaching up a hand, Saran cupped the back of Trey's head as he dialled up all his senses and began to map his Guide. Ultra-sensitive fingertips massaged Trey's nape and he murmured with pleasure as the muscles relaxed, then they traced down the back to the waistband of his jeans and back up the side of Trey's torso, testing for any injury or condition that threatened his Guide. Here on the right, the fingers pressed lightly into the flesh as they felt the uneven two ribs and through their strengthening link, Saran "saw" and "felt" the young child Trey hit the grass and break two ribs even as the kitten he had been trying to rescue from the tree bounded gracefully down unharmed. He chuckled aloud and Trey grinned up at him.

Trey found himself rubbing his face against Saran's throat invitingly, but it was only a very tiny, detached part of his brain that protested; the rest of him was far too interested in exploring the powerful creature that was his to command. For the first time in…for the first time _ever_…Trey felt truly safe and protected. His Sentinel was hugging him to him, holding him in place; Trey disappeared as the Guide laughed tauntingly and braced his hands either side the Sentinel's body, arching his back and tilting back his head so his throat was totally exposed…and totally beyond the Sentinel's reach.

Saran's good intentions - and the rational man - were swamped by the Sentinel's sudden surge forward as it snatched control from what had been holding it back, holding it down and preventing it from taking what belonged to it. The Sentinel rolled over trying trap the Guide who dared taunt him with his exposed throat, but the infuriating creature wriggled and laughed, suddenly acquiring an elastic body that writhed it's way free and batted cushions around the nest into the Sentinel's face. The Sentinel lunged but was off balance and ended up face first in a feather cushion that made him sneeze and shake his head. The Guide thought this entirely too amusing, and even as he dared crawl out of the cosy nest he was sniggering at the Sentinel.

Sniggering too hard to escape, the Guide went over on his back as the Sentinel gleefully lunged again, this time his aim true. The Sentinel measured his own length and smirked down at his captive smugly; the Guide wrinkled his nose back at him, unsuitably impertinent. Irritably the Sentinel shifted as rough cloth hurt his legs. Removing one hand from the Guide's shoulder, he pulled at the irritating garment on his lower body, tugging and twisting until he shed it. The same irritant was obstructing his full exploration of the Guide, so he divested him of the annoyance.

The Sentinel turned his attention back to the Guide, but both paused. The Guide felt something new – fear. The removal of the cloth from his lower body had triggered things in his mind, dark, terrible things that were seeping into the Guide's need to bond and diluting it. With no rationality left to direct either of them, Sentinel and Guide teetered on the edge of disaster.

The Sentinel rose to the challenge. It lacked coherent strategy, thanks to the artificial intensity of the Bonding Heat neither Saran nor Trey could even verbalise anything more basic than growls or purrs, but what the Sentinel had going for it was absolute devotion. It's Guide was the centre of it's universe; the Guide was loved, cherished, protected, nurtured; it would never, never hurt the Guide, it wanted only to bond. Was the Guide going to reject it? Anguish seared through the mental link.

Instantly the Guide began to croon, twisting and arching so it could rub against the Sentinel in reassurance. This was _the _Sentinel, no other would be tolerated. The silver and lavender began to pulsate and intertwine so tightly together that it was impossible to state where the strands began and ended. The Guide enticed the Sentinel with the heady musk of Bonding, on the metaphysical level their souls united. The Guide wanted the Sentinel to claim him…_now_…he arched back his head, exposing his throat.

Lowering his head, the Sentinel found the rapid, vital pulse where the shoulder and neck joined, nipping it and revelling in the whimper of delight that shuddered through his Guide. For a heartbeat he paused then bit – hard. Easily he controlled his Guide's spasm, savagely exulting in the cry of capitulation. He tasted the copper tang of his Guide's red life and soothed the wound with a lick of his tongue. The Sentinel continued his exploration, growling his own pleasure at his Guide's trembling submission. The Guide was his, all his!

The Sentinel gave a huff of displeasure as he found smooth, white, hairless skin on the Guide's abdomen, relic of a blaster at close range. His Guide would be protected and not allowed to take such risks! The Guide hastened to reassure his over-protective Sentinel that the wound had been minor. Slightly mollified, the Sentinel continued his mapping.

The Sentinel would have ignored the Guide's intimate anatomy and returned to feast on his Guide's throat, but he felt the return of that alien fear every time he inadvertently went too close to his Guide's groin. The Sentinel considered – his Guide _would_ submit, but it was anathema that the Guide should be afraid of his Sentinel, who would always cherish him. Carefully he lay down next to the Guide, pulling the smaller man close; he would never hurt his Guide and was pleased when he burrowed close to his Sentinel, seeking comfort. The silver tendrils eased along their lavender supports, merging deeper as the two minds became joined. New neural pathways were opened carefully and slowly to give time to adjust. Then the Sentinel found a small spot that his Guide had "encouraged" him to "pass over"; then another such spot – memories: dark, powerful, painful. The Guide shivered again, but not from delight. He was embarrassed by the memories, ashamed and afraid the Sentinel would not want him. He had been hurt by evil, cruel men, creatures unworthy to be called human, fit only to be hunted down and culled like diseased animals.

The Sentinel crooned wordlessly, petting and stroking his Guide. The Sentinel would hunt them, he would kill them, but his Guide was not to blame for the atrocities perpetrated against him. He was a brave Guide, a strong Guide to survive so much and yet maintain his sanity. His Sentinel was proud of his strength and courage. Millimetre by millimetre, soft breath by soft breath, the Sentinel joined his mind with his Guide. He followed the spiralling neurons into the dark places, dragged the ugly memories out into the brightness and banished them with tender affection and admiration. He rooted out shame, scoured away fear, banished trepidation and embarrassment. Finally he bent his head once again to his Guide's throat where lavender and silver spun in glowing harmony, irrevocably merged forever, gutturally growling his claim, "Mine. Claimed and Marked, Guide."

"Yours," the Guide moaned in delight as he was claimed. "Claimed and Marked, Sentinel. Yours forever…"

Interrogation Room, current Dark Angel HQ, a short while later… 

"Embezzlement."

Lincoln Jackson blinked and raised one eyebrow as Leo Kessler uttered this apparent _non sequitur_ with no apparent concern as he leaned back in his chair.

The two female Dark Angels had done their job perfectly, as Jackson intended when he sent specifically _them_. He'd never liked Kessler, and his Dark Angel side noted that the man always made the same mistakes – one of which was to continually underestimate women, simply because they _were_ women. Kessler _knew_ the two women were full Operational Dark Angel Agents, as lethal and as honed as any of their male counterparts bar the Sentinels and perhaps the elite Hunter-Killer agents, yet when they had appeared at his office with news of an urgent meeting, he had gone with them without qualm because they were just women, where even the most innocent looking male agent would have risked arousing his suspicions. Looking back, Lincoln Jackson discovered himself wanting, subconsciously he had noted also Kessler's subtle contempt for empaths and the greedy look in his eye whenever he looked at one, but had put it down to discomfort. Many people were uncertain about what exactly an empath could do and were too embarrassed to ask. That mistake had probably resulted in terrible suffering for many empaths.

Kessler had known that it was "game over" the instant he entered the room. He lounged in a chair, his suit crisp and his face calm, with Jackson sitting directly opposite him. To one side, Dark Sentinel James Ellison leaned back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest and the Dark Guide pressed against him, neither man taking their eyes of him for a second. Sandburg regarded him with undisguised hatred. Alike enough to almost be Ellison's twin, Captain E. Vincent Hunter of Cascade Internal Affairs – and soon no doubt to be co-opted into the Dark Angels - lounged in a chair with apparent relaxation, his gaze also unblinking like a tiger deceptively lazing in the sun as the foolish got too close to it. In another chair to the left was "Hellhound" Larabee, coiled and oozing deadly menace, his eyes ice-green pits leading straight to hell; his black clothing seemed to absorb all light, all hope and throw back an almost visible aura of concentrated menace. Outside the room and around Kessler were various Dark Angels, including Bonded Pairs.

Nobody moved and nobody spoke. Kessler had not expected Lincoln Jackson to be anything other than proactive, nor was he disappointed.

Dark Angel agents basically fell into three categories – Control, Operational and Field. Field agents were those who worked far from Dark Angel HQ, so deep "under" they were on nobody's radar, often for months or years at a time, living real lives that they stepped out of to accomplish some task before slipping discreetly back in again. They were Watcher agents, Wanderer agents, and also included the elite Hunter-Killers or just plain Killers whose sole mission was Death. Ellison was a Hunter-Killer, and Larabee had been a Killer status agent for longer than any other Dark Angel, to the extent some wondered who would be able to take him out when his Sentinel senses finally drove him insane after being unable to find a Guide who would bond with him. Despite his supreme self-confidence even now, Kessler could not quite dare smirk at the brooding, black-clad assassin as he recalled how several captured Wild Empaths had gone berserk with terror and loathing when brought anywhere near Larabee. Kessler could only hope the man took a lot of Dark Angels with him in his final homicidal dementia.

Operational agents, including Watcher and Searcher agents, were equally those who slipped in and out of superficially ordinary lives, like the two women who had tricked him into this room. Unlike Field agents, they remained always on the same planet as the current Dark Angel HQ, which contrary to popular belief had often removed itself from Federation to other less conspicuous worlds. Due to this need for "proximity with secrecy", the majority of Operational agents tended to be females, with a strong smattering of Beta Sentinels amongst them, just as Field agents leaned towards males and a strong tendency towards Alpha Sentinels. Control agents worked with Dark Angels HQ itself; they directed the organisation, including Central Command and, many believed, the current Supreme Commander, whoever he or she was. Control agents rarely included Sentinels, whose preference was to be active.

Within minutes of Kessler sitting down, Brigadier Jackson had had Control agents sifting through every tiny thing Kessler had ever done with or for the Dark Angels; every Field and Operational agent had been contacted and apprised of the situation and were either back-tracking Kessler's every breath since birth or waiting on Jackson's word. Jackson had sent for Chief Justice Aman, her Sentinel police officer son Jared Aman and his Guide Tommy Osaki. In the meantime, he had had all the Dark Angels' currently captured Wild Empaths brought into visual range of Kessler. Most had shown no reaction other than their desire to be somewhere else, but two had immediately reacted with such terror and hatred that they had had to be sedated and the two Sentinel agents waiting to claim them forcibly held off with Phaser pistols. The unconscious empaths had been removed with the Sentinels, but their reaction had been enough. The concentrated rage emanating from Blair Sandburg had been joined by that of others – the Dark Angels did not take kindly to be used as a shield by Kessler.

Footsteps sounded unnaturally loud in the preternatural quiet. Dressed in an immaculate silk suit, as if he had just come from a high-powered government meeting in his role as LEO High Commissioner, Saran Van den Mikhail strode along the corridor to where everyone was gathered with a smooth, confident walk. At his side, dressed in soft leather boots, black dress pants and a silver genuine cashmere sweater was a smaller figure with thick, soot-black hair, alabaster skin, and eyes that normally would be the soft golden brown of pure honey; now as they looked at Kessler they were pitiless pebbles in Logan's face. Around Saran's neck was the intricate tattoo of designs and colours that marked Van den Mikhail as unique – Body Heir of High House Syal and the Viceroyship of Olban. The tattoo now bore new bands of colour – deep, bright lavender. The pale pearls-and-milk skin of Trey Logan's was similarly fragmented at his neck, for around it was likewise a new tattoo that featured a lot of silver and lavender, but which did not quite hide the bite marks proclaiming a Guide who had been recently and thoroughly Claimed. Kessler doubted Logan's new tattoo, nor the changes to Van den Mikhail's, was more than fifteen minutes old. On Saran's jacket, his old pin – a chained snow leopard - was gone and an unfettered running one was depicted instead. The pin on Trey Logan's sweater depicted a similarly unchained, very small cat, only sitting down.

Lincoln Jackson had risen gracefully as Saran entered, stepping aside as the LEO Commissioner sat gracefully down in the chair opposite Kessler, Trey stepping silently but without fear to one side, near Sandburg and Ellison. At this point, Kessler had uttered his first word since being corralled here. Like Jackson, Van den Mikhail, apparently totally calm, raised an enquiring eyebrow as they waited for Kessler to elaborate. He wasn't fooled; he knew exactly how dangerous Saran Van den Mikhail was, and the man's dangerousness increased in direct proportion to how quiet he got. It was part of the reason Kessler had tried, ultimately in vain, to hire someone willing to assassinate the then new LEO High Commissioner several years ago. The Vicereine of Olban would have destroyed worlds to find her son's killers, and in the end it hadn't been worth the trouble, a decision Kessler was coming to realise had been a miscalculation.

"That's what you're going to send me to the prison planet Styx for," Kessler expounded dutifully. "Not sex crimes, I have no intention of being sent there for those. You will have me convicted of embezzlement – possibly tax fraud – I will serve a couple of years on Styx then I will retire gracefully to a nice little backwater paradise."

Saran Van den Mikhail regarded Kessler for a long moment then replied, his voice conversational and polite, "And in return for this extraordinary consideration, you will give us…?"

Kessler smiled. "Everything."

Chapter XII – Desiderata 

And he did.

It was quite simple really, each side existed into two completely different "realities". The people who were Kessler's customers never believed that he would "dare" to betray them. They were rich, powerful; to them Leo Kessler, polite and deferential, was a mere servant. Kessler on the other hand viewed his customers as cattle; his only focus was profit. As long as they were profitable, they would retain his absolute devotion. The instant he had walked into the interrogation room, they had become less profitable than betraying them to the Dark Angels.

It took hours; to Trey, time soon stopped having any real meaning. He remained with Saran while his Sentinel listened with seemingly sphinx-like imperturbability as Kessler revealed atrocity after atrocity, every word documented, every statement verified with multiple evidences: documents, vids, flimsies, banks accounts – and graves. A lot of Kessler's names were not a surprise, some were unexpected, others astonishing – rapists, murderers and so-called scientific researchers who had murdered by vivisection. A very few were unwitting accomplices, unaware of what part they played. Under normal circumstances it would have amused Kessler to destroy the innocent along with the guilty also, but he was too wise to know that anything other than scrupulous honesty would negate his prized "embezzlement" deal.

Jackson had brought Chief Justice Aman, her Sentinel police officer son Jared and his Guide Tommy Osaki into play. The instant Osaki clapped eyes on Kessler, he had snatched at his Sentinel's firearm with intent to kill. Being a not entirely unexpected reaction, it was the work of a moment to disarm him, but it took a lot longer to calm the pair down. At the end of it, Aman was signing warrants with a ferocious determination at a rate of several a minute. Many, many families would finally know the fate of their loved ones. Kessler gave details of popular "disposal sites" for vivisected remains and/or unwanted slaves and also every location where kidnapped empaths were being held prior to sale or re-sale. Orders were issued to the Dark Angels and also to the Underground Railroad on Earth via Simon together Cascade's Major Crime Unit, most of whom were Railroad members, Banks arranged all he could on Earth, the Moon, Halfway and Mars so they were ready to strike in a carefully choreographed concert.

Daric Slater's USS _Nimitz _was given new priority orders to allow three men and two women on board. The senior agent took command to the new destination, quietly reporting that the ship's hold was crammed with Wild Empaths; fortunately none of the five were Sentinels. Old Dimitri on Halfway Station glared with rheumy eyes and a fully charged blaster at the men who materialised on his docking bay. After thirty seconds of explanation, the old man was undocking and quite happy to take them halfway across known space had they wished it. William Ellison, Madjhuri Syal and Kristijana Akureyri personally put the full power of their Houses in the service of the Dark Angels.

Even Kessler began to flag, his suit limp, his voice hoarse, but Saran remained serenely calm and indefatigable. Dimly, Trey overheard that Patriarch Alphonse had arrived in secret to collect his son's body, but was too exhausted to be afraid and after the Patriarch left without ever coming anywhere this section of HQ. He suspected that Saran had intervened. He was too numb to feel anything much, even relief.

Finally it was done – everything annotated, documented, verified, irrevocably proven and tracked. On Federation, it was barely dawn, but for possibly the first time in it's history there were virtually no Dark Angels on the planet. Even Operational and Control agents had been sent out to join the carefully orchestrated strike teams. Like simultaneous missile strikes, the guilty would be taken down only minutes apart despite whether their planets were neighbours or separated by entire galaxies. Ships and shuttles full of extremely angry Dark Angels were hurtling through space at fastest possible speed to reach their strike destinations. His voice finally dwindling to a weary cease, Kessler slumped in his chair, rubbing his hand tiredly over his face. For him it was not over. He now had to go and be "framed" for embezzlement, but strangely the Dark Angels who escorted him felt no sympathy for his weariness.

Feeling like an old man, Trey stiffly got up out of a chair he'd been convinced he'd set into and left the room, instinctively going where he felt the most safe – the Bonding Suite where Saran had claimed him. Within minutes Saran also entered, the door sliding shut behind him.

"I thought I'd feel elated, at least relieved," Trey murmured as he sat on the bonding platform, fighting the urge to yawn massively. "I don't feel anything – just numb."

"Too much to take in at once," diagnosed Saran, coming to sit beside him. "It's the Headline Syndrome – a single child drowning is a tragedy, a million people killed in an earthquake is an interesting news item. On a personal level you suffered terribly, but in the wider picture you're not a drowning child, you're one of a million victims. You can't absorb the enormity of it."

Trey nodded, his head feeling like a lead ball. "I know. It's just…I don't know…terrifying that it's only Kessler. Just one man, only one single human being, that's all out of billions of billions of us, but he's caused so much _suffering_, so much _pain_…been responsible for the death of hundreds, the torture and…rape…of so many more." He swallowed, old insecurities and shame rising up to attack him.

A strong arm came around Trey's shoulder and he was pulled into a comforting embrace. "Nobody will ever hurt you again." It was a sacred vow. "Kessler's vile web has been destroyed."

Trey nodded again, his eyes fluttering closed. He gave a loud, gaping yawn and then blushed with embarrassment.

Saran chuckled. "I can take a hint. Come on, let's grab some sleep. I can set my body clock to wake us when it's time."

"You'll stay?" Trey hadn't meant for his relief to be quite that obvious, or his insecure neediness, and he flushed again.

Wisely Saran ignored his embarrassment and instead gave an aggressive snort of derision. "I'm in a building haunted by Bondless Sentinels with my Guide. You will _not_ move from my side, clear?"

Trey stretched out on the pillows and cushions, still blushing as he took in the rather wrecked chaos caused by their bonding. "Of course not…" He yawned again.

Kicking off his shoes and discarding his jacket and tie, Saran lay down next to Trey, allowing the smaller man to snuggle close and letting his own weary eyes flutter closed.

"…though Captain Hunter's a lot nicer than I thought he'd be." Trey couldn't resist testing his Sentinel's response.

It was immediate. Saran's eyes snapped open and he glared down at Trey, who looked back with perfect innocence apart from a tiny, betraying upward curl of his lips. Saran growled and rolled over, pinning his Guide, carefully hidden joy – and relief – swelling his heart when, apart from a brief flicker of his eyes, Trey showed no distress at the action. "Since when have you been noticing how _nice_ –" Saran made the word an epithet, " – Bondless Sentinels are?"

"They're not. Hunter just seemed okay…" Trey mock-reassured, hungry excitement rising in his chest, knowing that his focus on one particular Bondless Sentinel would provoke Saran far more than a general liking for Bondless Sentinels.

Saran knew exactly what Trey was doing, but it pushed his buttons anyway. "Be careful, Guide." He lowered his head to nip warningly at the base of Trey's throat. Trey laughed softly, confidence in his power flowing through him for the first time in his existence. He was more than an inconvenience, an irritant to be tolerated. He belonged to a Sentinel, a Sentinel who would never abandon him or get tired of him or wish him gone. He pressed the back of his head into the pillow, allowing Saran access to his newly tattooed throat, which had been done en route to the interrogation room by a Dark Angel doctor at Saran's insistence. The Sentinel did not hesitate to take the invitation, nuzzling and nipping his Guide's throat and growling in delight at the soft sounds of need his Guide made; strands of intertwined lavender and silver glimmered and scintillated as Sentinel and Guide united in psychic harmony.

Saran woke Trey an hour later, and Trey realised he felt as refreshed as if he had had a full night's sleep. Someone had provided fresh clothes and food for both of them and Trey showered while Saran ate; his Sentinel would then do his ablutions while Trey had breakfast. Laser depilation meant men had to infrequently shave; Trey knew he could go another week before he needed to shave again, and he blushed as caught sight of his neck in the mirror. It showed he had been a veritable _Smorgasbord_ for a certain Sentinel, but Trey didn't care if the entire universe knew the wonderful reality. He was no longer alone - he belonged to a Sentinel!

The raids were the intergalactic equivalent of a domino effect, utilising whatever military or local law enforcement personnel were needed _in situ_. There was no warning, only shock. By mid-morning the news media was glutted with images of senators, princes, politicians, parliamentary under-secretaries, presidential staff, Oligarchy Mandarins, MPs, businessmen and women, doctors, teachers, clergymen, counsellors, criminals, accountants, bricklayers and trash collectors being marched away in restraints. Again and again the words "Judicial Bypass Act" were uttered as transport ships thundered straight towards Styx with cargo after cargo of prisoners.

Trey sat in a chair in another anonymous conference room, watching events unfold on a giant vid-screen. He felt no satisfaction, only weariness. People came and went; he ignored them all. He did turn as Blair Sandburg and Gage Butler entered and he felt their empathic approval at his "restraint". "What?" he challenged his friends, uncaring that Sentinel ears could probably hear and their conversation – like probably every word ever uttered in this place - was doubtlessly being recorded by someone somewhere. "You thought I would be gloating over this?"

"No," Gage denied the charge without rancour, handing him a mug of coffee and taking the seat next to him. "But if it were me, I'd have to admit to a certain vengeful pleasure."

Trey shook his head. "There are too few winners here, and the price we're paying for victory is a terrible one…" He gestured at the screen.

"People fear the Dark Angels - and wisely so," put in the soft voice of Brigadier Lincoln Jackson unexpectedly from nearby, causing them to look at him. "They call us the Angels of Death – and rightly so. But we are not monsters, we do not rejoice in what we wreak. We seek only to protect those who have no protection against those without honour and decency. We walk a fine line between being a terrible good and becoming the abominations we seek to destroy, without soul or compassion for others. With the help of Trey, here, we have just cut out a vile, stinking infection in our society, but we have damaged good, healthy tissue around the wound in the process, which is never a good thing. I am relieved that you feel no delight in what you are seeing, Mr Logan. Gloating at the suffering of others, no matter how justified your pain, is to step on the road towards irretrievable darkness, towards loss of soul. It is the path that leads you to become, eventually, another Leo Kessler. In the Good Book, God Himself states that He created each of us and that we are all the sheep of his pasturage…each of us is the Image of God, and never should we rejoice at the destruction of one of us, for we are all made less."

Silence blanketed the room as Jackson inclined his head to Trey and left, the door hissing unnaturally loudly as it slid back after his departure. Race Keegan, who had inevitably followed Gage just as Jim and Saran had come with Blair and Trey, murmured in awe, "The Brigadier hasn't said that much at one time in years."

"The Image of God…it's a poem?" Blair muttered, straining for the memory.

Jim nodded. "Yes, it was written by a twentieth century soldier who fought in several terrible battles in what became World War I – Gallipolli, Ypres and the Somme. Somehow he survived the war, but it left him terribly mentally scarred. It's very popular in all branches of the military."

"I just wish there was another way," Trey admitted, shaking his head at the vid screen where another family wept in shock as a loved one was taken away in manacles.

Saran squeezed his shoulder in comfort. On dozens of worlds, including the Free Planets Trade Alliance and the Altair Confederacy, whose governments had immediately acceded to the Dark Angels explanation and request for assistance, the same scenes were played over and over again. Bewilderment, shock, denial, protest, horror: It was impossible…there had been a mistake…not my husband/father/brother/son…not my wife/mother/ sister/daughter…not my best friend…not my neighbour…it was wrong, he/she was a highly respected scientist/pillar of the community…a humanitarian/tireless charity worker…a dedicated paediatrician/family doctor/surgeon/psychologist. With infinite variations upon the ghastly theme, the designations changed but the disbelief remained. Confused, angry families came clutching galacs for bail bonds and deeds to property as surety to secure the release of loved ones, only to collapse as they found that the person was already en route to Styx due to the Judicial Bypass Act. The Act only used when incontrovertible and multiple evidences of beyond-doubt guilt were available. An Act that had to be co-signed by a Chief Justice, the LEO High Commissioner and a Patriarch or Matriarch of a Ruling High House, so serious was invoking it viewed. Anger and confusion turned to shock and grief: Chief Justice Aman, Saran Van den Mikhail and William Ellison had signed the Judicial Bypass Act Invocation Order; it was impossible to deny, unthinkable to accept.

Not even High Houses or the IFP Presidency remained unscathed or untouched. Trey was able to find a glimmer of positive outcome to his killing of Ruis de _y_ l'Almonté, thank God. Of all the High House children, Ruis was the only one knowingly involved in the vile corruption; had he lived, he would have been en route to Styx. One of Patriarch High House al-Mahemi's younger sons had skated perilously close and was currently under house arrest with his father on the verge of disowning him and shipping him to Styx. Two of Jim Ellison's High House Stantley cousins were already on their way there for their part, relative "minnows" though they were. Other High House scions found the beady eye of their current Matriarch and Patriarch upon them. Trey didn't know what he would have done had any of Saran's half-brothers or sisters been involved.

_My loyalty is to my Guide_, Saran said firmly in his mind, the first time he had done so since their Bonding. _First, last and always – you're welfare will be considered above all others. Besides, _the mental tone became grimmer, _I doubt my errant semi-sibling would have survived to be sent to Styx. Mymother's rage is fearsome, and her justice savage. Being her child would not save such a monster._

Trey blushed, privately thrilled by the mental affirmation of his Sentinel's devotion.

_Come on,_ Saran encouraged with a glance of dislike at the vid screen. W_e're both tired and it's time we started looking forward, not back…_

Trey took a sip of his wine and relaxed slightly as he realised he was completely dwarfed by the juxtaposition of potted plant and Corinthian column; inconspicuous and downright unnoticeable was exactly what he was aiming for. Despite his nervousness, he bit back a soft smile as he recalled that draining, shattering day after Saran had decided they needed to move forward. Had he known what that entailed, Trey would probably have refused to move, despite his distress and exhaustion. Trey was rapidly realising that Saran was what people meant when they used terms like "a force of nature". He got it from his mother; she was the person Saran had decided an unwitting Trey was going to meet, giving him all of ten minutes warning in the event!

Trey acknowledged that the previous five days would go down as some of the bleakest in IFP history; the destruction of Kessler's vile empire had rent great tears in society, leaving no class or stratum unscathed. For many waiting families, the knock on the door was a double-edged sword – finally closure but also loss of hope that somehow, somewhere, some way, their loved one had survived. Guilt and horror was the lot of the few unwitting pawns in Kessler's vile trade. Strike teams had rescued many empaths from their unsuspecting owners or cages in illegal research laboratories, but many were almost catatonic from weeks, months or several years of systematic torture and molestation. A lot were terribly injured or critically sick; many were so incurably insane that they would spent the remainder of their lives in mental care facilities, or were so diseased as to be terminal. For these, their loved ones found them again only to be faced with their loss in a short while. It would cost millions of galacs in hospitalisation and therapy, and realistically not all would make it. There would be suicides, divorces, breakdown of friendships.

Knowing their fate, the peddlers of flesh had fought back and both sides had had fatalities and casualties; Simon Banks was currently in hospital on Federation with blaster burns and several Dark Angels had been interred as "civilians" caught in the crossfire, their real purpose hidden from even those closest to them who were grieving over their relative or friend "unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time". It was said that one of the earliest Supreme Commanders – maybe even the first one – had built somewhere on Earth a secret chamber in which he – or she – had decreed would be a shrine to the Dark Angels' fallen, the single place where their faces and names would stand. It could be true or not, nobody knew.

As he had accompanied Saran out of the conference room and away from that depressing vid screen, Trey had been possessed by an overwhelming desire to simply _escape_, to get as far away from the almost Pyrrhic victory he had wrought. Nobody was paying them any attention in the furore, so they slipped away from Federation in Saran's personal cruiser. Happy to be quiet and peaceful, alone with his Sentinel for even just a day, Trey had given no thought to their destination until Saran had informed him they would be landing on Olban in ten minutes. Not only his mother the Vicereine, but her sister the Matriarch Madjhuri Syal herself being en route to the spaceport to meet them! He had wasted precious seconds howling at Saran like a banshee before diving into the fastest sonic shower in history and frantically yanking on and discarding clothes with feverish terror. His soot-black hair had decided to stick up as if he'd been electrocuted and would not be tamed, his skin suddenly looked washed out instead of just pale and why had he never noticed his crooked tooth…?

The Vicereine was stunning, her eyes glowing with her awesome intellect, and the Matriarch not much less overpowering. Somehow he got back to the Vicereine's Palace without collapsing in a blubbering heap and was introduced to the family. All of Saran's semi-siblings were beautiful and brilliant and beautiful, witty and charming, so were their cousins the Matriarch's offspring, and the other scions of the clan. He was caught between the need to run as fast as possible and to throttle the life out of Saran Van damn Mikhail! Trey flushed again as he recalled how he'd plucked up the courage to ask the Vicereine her name, commenting with puzzlement how Saran had never named his mother by any other description than her title. The room had erupted into gleeful laughter and Trey had frozen with terror, sure he had angered them and embarrassed Saran.

As if sensing his anguish, the Matriarch had spoken across the din, her voice soft as a breeze yet commanding instant, respectful silence. "My sister finds her name something of a burden, Trey." Her easy use of his name was a sweet melody to his ears. "When my sister was born, our father decided to name her Bethanne after his late mother, the Matriarch Bethanne Syal."

"Bethanne is a nice name." Trey was baffled.

There were muffled snickers; the Matriarch continued, "Our father tightbeamed his father a message asking his permission, which he gladly gave. Unfortunately our grandfather then tightbeamed the instruction to the Natal Registry on Federation, because usually a child is named long before it is birthed from the uterine replicator, not after. The problem was that when he received the tightbeam, our grandfather was on vacation on Earth in the city of his birth…Byzantium. In the twenty-first century they changed it back again from Istanbul, which wouldn't have been a problem."

Trey couldn't think of anything to say.

Saran smirked and interposed, "Someone at the Registry misunderstood or misread the message. It wasn't until my grandfather ordered the Natal Registry to send her Birth Documentation so he could declare her his Body Heir that the family discovered the baby they'd been calling Bethanne for eighteen months was named Byzantium."

The Vicereine gave a delicate maternal sniff. "For some reason it continues to amuse my family decades after anyone with sense is bored rigid by the anecdote."

That had caused more sniggers. However on an individual level, Trey found the Syal and Van den Mikhail scions all seemed to be genuine in their liking for him, even though he knew they must have been aware of his past. For example, none of Saran's jaw-droppingly gorgeous half-sisters or cousins had embarrassed him with overt sexual flirtation, so clearly they had some awareness that he had been sexually abused. Trey hadn't known whether to feel humiliated or grateful and indeed was still diffident on the issue. He had had a few sexual relationships since escaping Kessler, and each had ended amicably with his partner of the time, but Trey knew he had had to "push" himself into these physical relationships, and knew that he might never recover to the extent where sex was something he was really interested in.

However it was clear that they were working hard to put him at ease and Trey reciprocated by glossing over the occasional verbal _faux pas_ from the younger members of the family. In truth, he was privately eager to see the "real" Saran – the man behind the LEO High Commissioner and the Alpha Sentinel. Contrary to popular public belief, man and Sentinel were not always necessarily the same thing. Trey had already fathomed that Saran favoured his long-dead father, Aleksandr Van den Mikhail, and none of his semi-siblings resembled Saran bar superficially.

The closest perhaps in personality was his half-brother Falcon Syal Sinclair. Equally tall, with jet-black hair and ebony eyes, Falcon was aloof and indifferent to everything around him, though not rude, disappearing inside the Matriarch's superb library, filled with _real _books, not downloaded palm readers, whenever he got the chance. Also in common with the Saran, he was the only other of the Vicereine's children to have no full-blood siblings. When Trey had shyly said good morning to him the day after arriving on Olban, Falcon had regarded him with considered detachment for a moment, then uttered what passed for glowing commendation, "You've been Bonded to the man for less than three days and you've already managed to turn him into a human being, which is less that we've managed in nearly half a century. Keep it up, will you? He's much easier to deal with when he's not doing his Winter King icicle thing."

Mumbling some response Trey had beaten a strategic retreat, privately a little stung by the implied criticism of his Sentinel. After a lifetime of hiding his empathy, he had tentatively tried to reach out to Falcon's mind, but there was no hidden agenda or spite, just Falcon's considered opinion coupled with a relief that someone was around to occupy Saran's attention and divert his irritating "firstborn and eldest son" officiousness. However, buried very, very deep Trey caught a flash of ingrained anguish, a pain present so long Falcon himself no longer even noticed the burden he carried. Trey left it alone. Falcon's approbation had reminded him of the considerable age gap between himself and Saran. Trey had forgotten all about it, particularly since the age difference between Race and Gage was negligible, and that between Jim and Blair not many years. However, he and Saran were separated by a full twenty years; Saran would be forty-six on his next birthday, Trey was only twenty-five. Falcon had been dealing with his "issues" since before Trey had been born, and would doubtless not be happy with interference from someone a lot younger than him.

Besides, it had been obvious to Trey almost from the moment he stepped on Olban how much…_less_…Tracey Logan I really was. He had never felt easy within his family, had never felt comfortable on his family's estates, but as he compared Grandfather's trappings of power with the reality of High House Syal, Trey realised that Associate House Logan was a candle next to a star. Nothing was tacky or ostentatious, yet everything was palatial; real marble, wood, silk, linen, wool, fur, ivory, jewels and crystal adorned the sumptuous surroundings, framed by exquisite gardens crammed with rare species of flora and fauna to delight the eye – and this was only the Matriarch's guest palace when she visited her sister on Olban! Trey's mind reeled at what her official residence on Federation must be like, or her main palace on the High House Syal homeworld of Syaline Prime, or her ziggurat on Eden, where each High House was allowed to build a single ziggurat dignifying their house. Blair had said that the Ellison Ziggurat covered an area as big as Cascade had been at the beginning of the twenty-first century! Trey found his memories – and fear – of Grandfather as a hard, unyielding giant dwindling rapidly beside the sheer power radiated by most of the people now surrounding him; even the least of Saran's cousins had more money than Grandfather could ever hope to acquire in a dozen lifetimes of being a dedicated workaholic. Perceptively Trey wondered if that was why Saran had taken the sudden decision to bring him so abruptly to Olban. Had his Sentinel thought to blow away the last lingering ghosts of Trey's fears and insecurities? Trey knew that he would certainly never be afraid of Grandfather again.

Trey didn't have much time for introspection on Saran's motives. After those first harrowing days, the news media searched for some relief from the unrelenting grim accounts of lives shattered and families torn apart, and they found it in William Ellison's Birthday Ball that would take place on Eden at the Ellison ziggurat; the very place the late, unlamented Ruis de _y _l'Almonté had been happy to completely disintegrate with a plasma bomb just to get his twisted revenge on Jim Ellison, though of course nobody new that. The fact that for the first time ever all five of the Patriarch's children would be in the same place at the same time, including his formerly bitterly estranged Body Heir, Lord Sentinel James Ellison and bastard son Captain Ellison Vincent Hunter of Cascade PD Internal Affairs, was the sort of speculative soft news item that could be expanded and built upon; it was seized eagerly.

Trey knew that the "real" party had already taken place. The immediate Ellison family, William, his second wife Ehlan, children Steven, Edmund and Suzette, along with Steven's wife Karen and children Jay and Kia, had privately met Jim and Blair and Hunter. Blair had tightbeamed both Gage and Trey with a hilarious - but with an underlying seriousness – account of how he had directed the emotional traffic, easing everyone over the awkward spots and _sotto voce _threatening Hunter will all manner of improbable bodily harm if the guy didn't unclench and _let it go_.

The Birthday Ball was a pageant, a show for the masses, Saran had irritably explained. When called upon to arbitrate for the thousandth time between a half-sister and a cousin who both wanted to wear the same colour, he ended up being yelled at by both for calling the "damn thing" a _dress_ when it was a _ball gown_. Normally the heads of the High Houses passed days of celebration without such public displays, but William Ellison's 97th birthday was also his Golden Jubilee – the 50th Anniversary of his Ascension to Patriarch following the deaths of his parents, Patriarch Willard Ellison and Consort Yvette Stantley, in an air-skiff crash.

Everything had nuances, and layer upon on layer of meaning. Anybody who was anybody had sold solar systems and sacrificed their own mother to any listening deity on the off chance just to get an invite. Each of these Balls was literally a Power Play, and everyone wanted to be in on the action. Everything from the seating arrangements to the flowers decorating the tables was graded to a precise art and the smallest cheque William Ellison would have written to cover the event would have had six or seven zeros on it. Some Houses, like High House Ellison, were easy to accommodate, with others there had to be "balance", and Trey soon came to understand Saran's irritability.

Of the late Patriarch Khan Singh Syal IX's seven children, the Matriarch Madjhuri and the Vicereine were the only two girls, but they were half-sisters. The Matriarch Madjhuri's mother was the Dowager Consort of High House Syal, but the Vicereine's mother, though only Dowager Wife of High House Syal, had been Singh Syal's most loved wife. The Matriarch Madjhuri had three sons by her Consort, though Saran was her Body Heir, and four daughters by her two Husbands and a Co-Parent contract. Her middle son Nazir Syal Istvan was her Consort's Body Heir. The Body Heir of the Patriarch or Matriarch of a High House took precedence over siblings of the same parentage and any semi-siblings, and also outranked any Body Heirs of the Matriarch or Patriarch's spouses/co-parents. One of the four daughters, Sameyyah Ibn Hussan, was Body Heir to her father, so she outranked all siblings bar Nazir, but Nazir's parents were Matriarch and Consort, whereas Sameyyah had only her mother as Matriarch, her father not being a Consort, just husband. Saran was the Body Heir of the Matriarch and so out-ranked Sameyyah and Nazir, but neither of his parents were the Matriarch or her Consort…Trey had taken a flimsy and started drawing lines connecting each person "dot", but when he had to begin factoring in the multiple degrees of relationships, intermarriage, genetic contracts and so forth, he had just given up when an hour's solid drawing of lines from dot to dot left him with something that looked like an army of drunken spiders had fallen in an ink vat and then danced across the page.

Sadistically deciding that his Guide needed to "embrace the pain", Saran had come down to breakfast one morning and loudly despaired the state of his Guide's wardrobe. Trey swore he could see every female within a mile radius come to attention, like a pride of lionesses scenting a deer. Perhaps spotting the stark terror in Trey's eyes, the Vicereine had mercifully interposed at that juncture, announcing she would take Trey on a party outfit buying expedition. Others were conspicuously not invited.

Taking him to the most exclusive tailor's in Albion, Olban's planetary capital, the Vicereine had picked out some "smart casuals" – dress pants, shirt, collarless jacket – that would not make his pale skin looked sallow or washed out and would enable him to "blend" at the Ball. She assured him that "eccentric" attire was a sort of traditional competition amongst the younger element at these things and he would certainly not be out of place if he didn't wear formal evening dress. Apparently at one High House gathering, somebody had come in a bio-engineered "living" feather thing that made "her look like nothing so much as a Christmas turkey" only to end up being attacked by the clothing of another guest who had had the same idea and whose garment was a bio-engineered "live" fur. Still somewhat embarrassed over the size of his Guide Allowance, Trey had paid for the clothing and she had given him a mini-tour of the city's interesting spots before they stopped for lunch at a café so rarefied they charged you to breathe the air; the Vicereine was obviously a regular. She simply ordered double her "usual", before turning back to Trey. He kept his face bland, wondering if this was going to be the part where the gloves came off and he was told to know his place and stay in it.

Instead the Vicereine gave him a stunning smile. "Consider this my formal welcome. I'm so pleased that Saran has finally found you."

"Thank-you, ma'am," Trey answered. "I won't deny it's been a little difficult, but I will do my best to be the Guide Saran needs –"

He blinked when she gave a most unladylike and highly derisive snort. "I've no doubt about _that_ whatsoever. My darling boy, you seem oblivious to the fact that you sweat integrity. Just you make sure that my son is the best Sentinel that his Guide needs!"

"Saran's all right, really," Trey found himself saying, only to be met with another disdainful sniff.

"Huh." Giving him a considering look, the Vicereine expanded, "I know Saran too well, and to be honest, I have to accept that I'm partly why he's so…"

"Officious?"

She grinned. "Indeed, good word. Saran has always been aware of his responsibilities as my firstborn child, and acutely aware of the fact that he is my favourite child…" For a moment her voice petered away and Trey caught the feeling of old grief; the Vicereine loved Aleksandr Van den Mikhail just as much now as she had over forty-five years ago, the fact that her husband had been dead for more or less that long having no impact on the emotion…"When my sister decided to make him her Body Heir over her own children, that added to his responsibilities. Saran's main trouble is that he is too used to being in control. He is brilliant, he is incisive, he is innovative. Unfortunately those attributes have given him a tendency to think he can control the cosmos to his liking."

"I'm not sure I follow?" Trey obfuscated in the manner of Blair Sandburg, deciding it would be impolite at best to give a heart-felt agreement like, "'Yeah, he's is a control freak, isn't he!'" to his Sentinel's mother!

Her lips twitched as if she discerned his intent. "God is our Father and the Universe our Mother; both are beautiful but unyielding parents. Saran tends to make plans way in advance and then expects the Universe to re-order itself to comply. He expected to have a Guide long before now. It will do Saran good to have someone not afraid to rein him in when he gets going on some idea of his!"

Keen to learn more about his Sentinel's background, Trey admitted, "I was very surprised when I bonded with Saran. I always assumed that Saran's Guide would be…"

"One of those bland IFP neurologically neutered empaths?" the Vicereine grinned with a hint of malice and her voice became pompous and clipped. "So did Saran. He had it all worked out. His Guide would be someone who attended an IFP empathy-centric school, perhaps Fontein Academy or the Roslyn School. A young man of similar age from a good, middle-class background, sensible and efficient and someone who had the brain surgery to render them unable to bond when they were young enough and egotistical enough to be glad to be rid of all that "bonding urge" nonsense." Her tone went back to its normal musical lilt as Trey chuckled aloud, "Sounds like someone wanting to buy an air-skiff, doesn't it? Saran went to dozens of mixers, but nothing worked, no spark at all; bunch of meek milksops the lot of them. All they were interested in was his bank account, but he wouldn't even consider any of the Wild Empaths that were caught. Didn't fit in with his life-plan to be that emotionally dependent on _anybody_."

"What did he do?" Trey found himself feeling a sudden surge of anger at the thought of Saran surrounded by Bondless Guides – Saran was _his_ Sentinel!

"He didn't know what to do!" The conversation paused briefly while the food was brought and they made decent inroads on it, then she went on, "It wasn't according to his timetable, you see. He expected to be "Guided up" by the time he left university. When he didn't have a Guide at twenty-five, he was confused. By thirty he was exasperated, at thirty-five downright annoyed, and at forty he decided to give up on the entire idea and spend the rest of his life on suppressants – sulking is what I call it."

Trey laughed as he could actually imagine Saran jacking the whole Guide idea in during a fit of Sentinel pique. He started when she leaned her hand over and touched him lightly on the wrist – the Vicereine was not given to physical demonstrations.

"I'm delighted to welcome you as part of my family, Trey Logan. You will be an excellent Guide to my most precious son." She ignored the way he flushed to his hair roots. "But don't let Saran intimidate you. Your hopes and dreams are just as valid as his, and there will be times when you'll need to apply a firm boot to his posterior. For example, what have you done about joining Federation's LEO Commission as a detective?"

"Uh…?" Trey had never considered that going back to police work, much as he had loved his job, would be an option for him.

"I thought as much. Put your application in a.s.a.p. – and _don't_ tell my son about it. You are a person in your own right, not his adjunct or servant. It's clear from the way you speak about it that you loved being a detective and there is no reason why you should give up your dream." Her tone was stern, but her face kind.

"Thank you," Trey whispered, amazed at such kindness. Had it been Grandfather sat opposite him and he Guide to a Sentinel Logan, he would have been bombarded with a long list of "don'ts" designed to emphasise how unworthy he was to associate with Grandfather's Sentinel heir and to "mind his place" as a glorified servant…

Trey came out of his reverie when he spotted Gage expounding something to two well-dressed men he recognised as wealthy business moguls. Trey experienced a pang of envy; Gage was far more comfortable in this setting – he just viewed it as a major networking opportunity. Gage the Guide had been replaced with Dr Butler, genius xeno-archaeologist and Final Authority on the aliens of Hyperion. Without bombast, Gage nevertheless held his own with polite but firm authority. Still secure behind the cover of his potted plant, Trey searched for Blair and finally spotted him way over the other side of the "room", though to call this massive vaulted rotunda a room was like saying that St. John the Divine was a "big cathedral". Marble columns soared so high you got a crick in the neck following them up to the ceiling, which was decorated in fabulous murals. Indeed, Blair was so far away that Trey could only make out his halo of wild curls. He wondered how Blair was coping. Unlike his own rather mundane background, the Dark Guide victim/killer of the evil Dark Sentinel Alexandra Barnes had been media fodder for several years, and Trey doubted there was a person here who didn't know at least some of the facts liberally laced with salacious media speculation. Although Blair was animated enough, even from this distance Trey could discern Blair's usual effervescent "bounce" of manner…

Blair the Dark Guide was watchful; Blair the man was deeply nervous. Blair the anthropologist was…fascinated.

Like Trey, though not really "hiding", Blair had placed himself discreetly next to a convenient pillar and watched the rulers of the universe at play. The real birthday celebration had been held privately yesterday, unique for the presence of both William's estranged sons Captain E. Vincent Hunter and Lord James Ellison, both not twenty feet from his self-appointed observation post.

This wasn't a party however, but a display, a ceremonial parade. As wine so rarefied it would cost a solar system just to look at the bottle flowed like water from a faucet, Blair could practically see the fog of political machinations that hung almost visibly over the entire assemblage. Political deals were made over the hors d'oeuvres, economic policies by the consommé, trade agreements and military treaties done and dusted by the time dessert was served. As part of his Golden Jubilee Patriarchal Address, William Ellison had announced that the Ruling Nine High Houses had accorded House Sengupta, House Voissoin, and House Bingham the status of Associate Houses and Associate House Mahdjpur had been elevated to the rank of Lesser House Mahdjpur. These had caused nothing so gauche as excited gossip, but Blair could practically see the energy burn pouring off some people and was grateful for the quick briefing session Jim had given both him and Hunter yesterday so they didn't inadvertently make some ghastly _faux pas_ that would be the present-day version of an "international incident".

Jim had explained the founding Three High Houses – Ellison, al-Mahemi and van Zant - had rapidly become aware of the usefulness inherent in numerical asymmetry. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, the Western hemisphere of Earth had moved away from monarchy to "rule by committee" during a long period of flirtation with the doctrine known as political correctness. Unfortunately the experiment hadn't worked as the PC doctrines that "competition" was "bad" for children and conformity was "God" led to several consecutive generations of people obsessed about claiming their rights and shirking their responsibilities, all thinking they were natural "chiefs" and refusing to be "Indians". Consequently important national concerns like, for example, the British rail network and transport infrastructure, got bogged down in endless circles of committees and working groups that existed primarily to pass the buck onto the next committee. The subsequent political shift back to monarchs with "real" individual power in countries as diverse as China, Russia and France came not out of a desire to have a king or queen, but out of wanting stuff to just _get done,_ to have one person who could stop the buck and direct traffic.

Therefore, the Founding Three High Houses had created one inviolable rule – there would never be an _equal _number of Ruling High Houses, with the disastrous potential for "decision deadlock" if the Heads were split evenly on some issue. Due to this, Houses were only elevated to the status of Ruling House in pairs. It had been over three hundred years since the Ruling Seven became the Ruling Nine, and the miasma of barely suppressed thrill when William Ellison made his announcements was there because it was "known" that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Ruling Nine Houses had unanimously agreed to become the Ruling Eleven High Houses. Millions of every currency you cared to name was changing hands and would continue to do so as interested parties scrambled to get the inside track on which two Houses would be Elevated. Usually the procedure was Name House, Associate House, Lesser House, and maybe, possibly, fantastically, High House, but there had been enough precedent setting exceptions to that rule in the case of clearly extraordinary talent in a particular family. High House Stantley, who had produced Jim Ellison's paternal grandmother Yvette Stantley, had themselves leapfrogged Lesser House status.

Blair glanced casually around, playing his own personal game of "spot the killing machine". Despite the solid mass of Semi-Divine Great & Good types all around, there were no bodyguards/Personal Protection Officers, Security agents, etc and so on. Such would have been an unforgivable slur on House Ellison, a shocking insult that would suggest the Patriarch could not keep his guests safe or even worse might be an assassin.

Except, of course, the Dark Angels. The whole point of being a Dark Angel was that nobody knew you were one; a Dark Angel had a "real life" and stepped into being a Dark Angel to sort things out before returning to that life unnoticed. Thus, a janitor who was a Dark Angel was still a janitor. As a consequence of the lack of personal protection that most of the guests enjoyed, Blair was willing to bet that a large number of the chefs, waiters, waitresses, servers, butlers and other attending staff were a bit snazzier than usual in the weapons-wielding and kicking-ass departments.

Blair looked around again, anxiety on Trey's behalf nagging at him as he knew that the Patriarch Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonté was "around", though he couldn't spot him. Blair felt a hollow at the pit of his stomach. There hadn't been a High House ruler in half a millennium who'd had only one child, and even then, Matriarch Aislinn van Zant's Body Heir had been her brother, not her son. Already the scions of High House de y l'Almonté were beginning to manoeuvre into the vacuum left by the death of the Patriarch's only child and Body Heir. Blair knew it was going to be unpleasant, particularly as no weakness could be shown under the avid gazes of this august assemblage, comprised of presidents, warlords, emperors, empresses, kings, queens, plenipotentiaries, ambassadors, sultans, Prime Ministers, viceroys, diplomats, representatives, businessmen, frontier-world planetary tyrants and a dozen other assorted men and women of vast power and/or wealth. Even the "Atewam" Empire, scrupulously referred to in the correct manner as "Noble Reflections of the Eternal Empress of the Atae-uha'am Empire", had sent representatives to the Patriarch's event, their sky-blue skin startling amidst the throng.

Blair had looked at the pair, one male and one female exactly identical in a manner that proclaimed them to be clones, with curiosity. The original settlers of the Atae galactic cluster had possessed a nasty tendency towards embracing "eugenics" and neo-Nazism type philosophies of a radical kind. Their Empire's internal politics still embraced a zesty enthusiasm for brutal and spectacular assassinations of political opponents; bioengineering was the norm and GELFs – genetically engineered life forms – for the sole purpose of slavery was Standard Operating Procedure. Over the centuries genetic, manipulation had been turned into a form of art by the Atewam, the sky-blue skin hue being a fashion fad that had endured for the last 80 years or so. It was true humanity had made contact with no "other" sentient species in their centuries of interstellar exploration, but the Atewam, though still human, were clearly well on their way to Something Else. Despite his misgivings over Patriarch Alphonse, Blair bit back a grin, The real sign of final species divergence would be when the Atewam and their IFP "neighbours" were no longer inter-fertile, or could only produce sterile hybrids like the ass, offspring of donkeys and horses or tigions, produced from lions and tigers, though these had thanks to some radical GE become two self-reproducing species.

Blair had no doubt that the Atewam and their brutal mistress the Eternal Empress, one of whose _official_ titles was Lady of Blood Vengeance, were eyeing the possible power vacuum in the IFP keenly. At the moment, the universe populated by humanity could be split into three circles near to each other – the Intergalactic Federation of Planets, the Atae-uha'am Empire and the Non-Aligned Free Worlds, the last being comprised of such as the Altair Confederacy, the Free Planets Trade Alliance and the multitude of mini-empires in the Frontier Worlds. At the moment, there was no conflict between the three. The IFP, the Atewam and the NAFW were all expanding at a phenomenal rate, but space was so vast and resources so immeasurable that conflict was nil. However, Blair knew that none would pass up the opportunity to strengthen itself at the expense of the other two. Sometimes he had idly speculated what would occur if Humanity eventually met up with another sentient species and was forced to curtail it's outward expansion. What would happen if the three cultures ended up competing rather than co-existing for resources? He had no doubt it would be brutal with an astronomical body count.

The sky-hued clones wandered off, their faces inscrutable; Blair wondered what they would report back to the Starfire Court of the Eternal Empress,and would they be killed afterwards, deemed "contaminated" by exposure to genetically "inferior" humans, or allowed to live? He saw the clones heading towards Gage and grinned. His friend was in full Dr Butler mode. Blair just spotted Trey hidden by a truly Triffid-esque potted plant and a soaring marble pillar; he thought he might be smiling at him so nodded his head in response, though he couldn't really see that far across this…this… "expanse" was the only suitable word. Naomi's unplanned pregnancy at the age of eighteen had meant that Blair, like Hunter, was a body birth and not a uterine replicator one. Naomi had had – still did have – firm beliefs on Man "interfering" with nature (plus, Blair suspected, a serious cash-flow problem) and once a scan had confirmed the health of the foetus, she had left well enough alone. Completely without genetic enhancement, Blair had been born with an IQ off the charts, and having low blood pressure that made him susceptible to cold was not that much of burden. Quite often, however, Blair heartily wished Naomi had taken steps to correct the hereditary myopia that lurked in his maternal genetic tree and reasserted itself every so often.

Automatically Blair checked on the positions of Race, Saran and Hunter. He already knew where Jim was, could make his way to his Sentinel's side blindfold, and also the Ellisons. Aware of the potential for disaster, Blair had done his best to ease the meeting yesterday between William Ellison and his estranged sons. As they had approached Eden via Dark Angels transport, Blair hadn't been above letting his own "wistful" longings for a father colour his empathic "tone" as he cajoled and appeased Jim and especially Hunter, who was increasingly morose the closer they got to the meeting.

Jim had been estranged from William since he abandoned Federation at eighteen to join the IFP Army, quickly establishing himself amongst the elite Rangers. Hunter had similarly worked his way up to a much-decorated, greatly admired and even more feared "veteran" police officer despite his relative youth, still in Homicide when he had crossed paths with his half-brother. Unwittingly investigating the same murder-espionage case from opposite ends, it was colleagues of the pair who had become agitated when the "same man" appeared in entirely different clothing in the same place a few minutes apart, only to deny any knowledge of being there before and declaring his name was _Jim_ or _Hunter_ depending on the situation. The same man would vid-phone forensics in the morning then contact them again for the "first time" in the afternoon. The guy had removed evidence from lock-up and then turned up again to collect it becoming furious when told he'd already taken possession of it. One of Hunter's superiors, a Chief Mannion, had had the intelligence to arrange a Joint Taskforce meeting and see who turned up. The entire room had done a double take when two identical men had entered simultaneously through two different doors and stared with equal astonishment at each other as their colleagues were showing…

"…_and it went downhill from there_," Jim had confessed, his words echoing anew in Blair's head.

Blair could understand it. Both were Alpha Males as well as Bondless Sentinels, and from a psychological viewpoint, it would have struck devastatingly at the core of each man's sense of "personal identity" to be suddenly confronted with a _doppelganger,_ particularly since Jim and Hunter really did share a lot of identical personality traits and preferences, a stark comparison to Stephen Ellison, with whom the only thing Jim really had in common was the fact that they shared the same parents. The two men had developed a distant "nodding acquaintance" relationship and then tried to steer clear.

Blair's subtle manipulations had had help; William Ellison was painfully eager to be reconciled with his second son and to get to know his firstborn. Stephen Ellison's welcome was equally as obviously sincere, and Edmund and Suzette had broken the ice by converging on the two men like Seeker missiles and bombarding their half-brothers with questions. Stephen's children had been similarly entranced. There were no hugs and soppy weeping, but Blair had been gratefully relieved when last night passed with a definite warming of the filial atmosphere, which was all to the good. Unless Blair was much mistaken, Hunter and Jim now had another thing in common – the Dark Angels. Blair would have bet his curls that Hunter had been co-opted into the lethal organisation. They weren't the sort of people you said no to…

"Uh-oh." Blair stiffened and put down his drink. _Jim! Jim! Alert!_

_What's up?_ Casually putting down his own glass of wine, Jim straightened up slightly, his face maintaining it's blandly polite expression; Blair knew that in reality, he was coiled and ready. Within a second, like an invisible ripple, Blair saw Race, Gage and a wide variety of guests/serving staff similarly shift their balance in a very, very tiny yet significant way as they picked up on the Dark Sentinel's stance.

_Please tell me what I thought I saw wasn't what I thought I saw? _Blair indicated across the room.

Easily increasing his Sentinel sight, Jim cursed softly, _Sorry Chief – uh-oh, Saran's spotted him too. Let's go see if we can damp down the explosion_.

Saran Van den Mikhail was drifting with nonchalant but deceptive speed towards the graceful arch that led into another section of the ziggurat, his face bland but somehow warning against approach.

The party was now winding down as guests had begun to drift in ones and twos towards the guest suites prepared for them – the Ellison ziggurat could easily accommodate a "cast of thousands". Blair had seen Trey begin to amble off towards the suite he had with Saran as soon as was politely feasible and the young man was now walking across a vaulted rotunda towards the sweeping curved staircase. What Blair had also seen was a tall, rotund, grey haired older man making his way _towards_ the party, though the distance was great some instinct told Blair that the older man was Alphonse de _y _l'Almonté and neither he nor Trey was paying much attention to where they were heading. Blair realised the two men's path would intersect more or less at the shadowed alcove where the staircase swept around in a curve. Carefully making his way across the room, Blair had no heightened senses, but his empathic resonance with Trey suddenly changed colour from magenta to burgundy as the empath suddenly became agitated; linked always to Jim's mind, Blair felt his Sentinel react to the way Trey's heartbeat and pulse suddenly spiked. The potential for Extreme Nastiness was almost palpable, and Blair increased his pace, thankful that most of the guests had retired and those that remained were too young and too silly with wine to pick up on nuances of atmosphere…

For a long moment, Trey Logan and Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonté just looked at each other; a quick polite exchange of glances as both moved to avoid collision had precipitated this frozen moment. Alphonse's brows drew down into a heavy frown, his black eyes fixed on Trey's face and for a moment Trey wondered if the man was going to whip out a blaster and shoot him on the spot. He said nothing. He couldn't have spoken had his life depended on it; his throat was desert dry and his lips seemingly glued together.

Abruptly Alphonse gave a deep sigh. "Stop looking like a frightened rabbit, boy. I mean you no harm."

As if someone had suddenly oiled his vocal chords, Trey managed to stammer out, "I-I-I'm s-s-sorry. I wish I hadn't had to…"

"…but you had no choice," Alphonse responded heavily. Looking at Trey's frightened face, he sighed heavily. "At first I hated you, at first I was going to…well, never mind. I wish with all my heart that it was otherwise…but I knew exactly what my son was, Mr Logan. After all, I made him the rabid dog you had to put down. I shall try and avoid you if at all possible, considering you are the LEO High Commissioner's Guide, but there will be no Vendetta from me. I am too old, and as Bill pointed out, I should take my own advice."

"So you do listen to me after all, Al'." William Ellison's words were light as he stepped out of the shadows but his face was serious and strained, his hand tight around that of his wife, Ehlan Van den Gaerde.

Trey became aware of Saran walking to stand just behind him, and knew that Race, Gage, Jim, Blair, Hunter and Stephen and Karen Ellison were shielding them from view, as if this were just a family/friend casual chit-chat. He relaxed against Saran's solid, comforting bulk. His Sentinel was here; he was safe. In his mind he felt the reassuring touch of Saran's mind, the assurance that he was secure.

"I could hardly contradict my own counsel, could I?" Alphonse charged with a hint of acerbity. He gave a measuring look at Trey, then addressed him directly. "I went to school with Bill - and James…"

…For a moment Trey wondered who he meant, then wondered what it would be like to be so powerful that you could call the Patriarch of High House Ellison "Bill"…

"James was their pride and joy." There was a slightly censorious note in Alphonse's tone as he explained, "Patriarch Willard Ellison and Yvette Stantley designed James to be a Sentinel, to be their little Perfect Super-Sensory Body Heir. They were most surprised when the blastocyst split, but didn't really have any problems with an identical twin, though he wasn't a Sentinel of course."

Trey found himself nodding. The famous Guide Diaries had explained that even in multiple births of identical twins or triplets, children developed from the same egg, only one was ever a Sentinel, though all could be Guides. The diarist had theorised that it was connected with territorial imperative; a Sentinel tended to develop this about the geographical area of his birth, and since two Sentinels could not co-exist in the same territory, having identical twin brothers or sisters who were both Sentinels would cause nothing but trouble.

"James was their golden boy," Alphonse was explaining, "their Chosen Heir. They had no problems with William being Billy, but James always had to be given his full dignity, no diminutive name for him."

"Now, Al…" Soothed William, looking rather embarrassed at being defended over what must have felt like a painful parental rejection to him as a child, especially as he was being overlooked in favour of a child genetically identical in every way, except that James was a Sentinel.

Alphonse snorted and fixed his gaze again on Trey. "After James died when he was ten, Bill blamed himself deeply and unnecessarily and his parents were worse than useless, moping about as if the cosmos had come to an end. At the time I told him that he was beating himself up unnecessarily. I told him the unpalatable truth, " 'James was born a Sentinel. He knew what he was; he knew the risks inherent in being a Sentinel. Your brother had free will. He had a choice. He knew exactly why that spinning top was a forbidden toy, he knew the risks involved in playing with it and he alone made the choice to not only to play with it but to do so alone somewhere he was unlikely to be spotted quickly should he zone.'" Alphonse shook his head mildly. "I never thought that advice would come back to haunt me. I loved my son, Mr Logan, but I know that he had choices. I bear much of the responsibility for making him what he was. I didn't take my own advice. I spoilt Ruis and indulged his every whim to assuage my own guilt over his mother's death, when my Consort made the choice to attend that business meeting. By the time I admitted to myself what Ruis had turned into, he was irredeemable.

"It's always easy to make the right decisions in hindsight," Blair put in quietly, his voice carrying clearly to the small group but no further. "I got myself to be captured by Alexandra Barnes because I _wanted_ to believe she was a confused woman needing help; it fed my ego that a beautiful woman was relying on my expertise. There were plenty of warning signs, attitudes and things that she let slip inadvertently that sounded warning bells, but I didn't want to listen, so I ignored them. You loved your wife, and you overcompensated with Ruis out of your grief and guilt, but in the end, each of us has to make a personal choice whether to walk in the light, or walk in the darkness. Ruis was designed to be the Body Heir of a Patriarch. He had the intelligence to change his lifestyle and attitude when he became old enough to understand the repercussions of what he did in his life, but he chose not to. You aren't to blame for what Ruis chose to do when he was an adult." Blair leaned back into his Sentinel as Jim placed a comforting hand on his shoulder – talking about Alex Barnes for any reason distressed him.

Alphonse gave a weak smile. "Yes Mr Sandburg, that's exactly what Bill said. I don't exactly like you, but I don't bear you any animosity, Trey Logan. I know you didn't have any choice about killing Ruis. I am aware for a fact that my son engineered two assassination attempts against me in the last year, but I never did anything about it because that meant I would have to accept that Ruis was an amoral sociopathic waste of space and oxygen."

"I was a detective, Sir," Trey said softly but firmly. "I've had to kill criminals, but I have never taken any pleasure in taking the life of another human being – we are all God's children. Ruis was aiming at my friend Gage Butler; I had no choice but to shoot to kill. I'm sorry for your sake that I had to do so."

Alphonse nodded wearily. "I know, I know. There's no need to worry about my reaction, and I am grateful that Ruis's death is being passed off as an accident. Now I wish I had listened to you, Bill, when you kept urging me have more children even if I didn't choose a new Consort. The sharks are circling and even that beautiful monster the Eternal Empress is sticking her nose in."

"Surely it's too soon for you to decide on a new Body Heir?" Karen Ellison put in, showing her distaste for such an idea since Ruis – unlamented though he was – had been in his grave only a few days.

"Unfortunately not," Alphonse disagreed grimly. "There is an old Earth saying: a week is a long time in politics. The longer I leave it without assigning a new Body Heir, the more unstable the situation will become, and people will quickly begin to claim that I am too feeble to maintain my power or position. I need to display the ruthless pragmatism credited to a High House, but…"

"I know many capable people in your House," Jim offered. "In fact one of the detectives I work with in Cascade, Bryan Rafe, his mother is one of your nieces."

Alphonse spread out his palms in a helpless gesture. "That is my problem. The capable, honourable members of my House – very sensibly – don't want to touch the Body Heir position with a…what's that saying?…bargepole…and those that would happily take it tomorrow are too indolent, youngsters who've been quite happy to reap the rewards of being a High House member without putting in any of the work. They see the power, but don't want the responsibilities that go with it. Whichever one of them I pick will be like choosing the lesser of two evils. There is little to choose amongst my plethora of nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts. It would be different had I several other children to choose from, but -"

"E-Excuse me," Trey made a tentative hand gesture to get their attention. "In that case, Patriarch Alphonse, Sir, what about Ruis's daughter?"

"HIS _WHAT_!" Shock made Alphonse's exclamation echo and several people nearby turned to look at them; instantly Gage and Blair began broadcast happy, soothing feelings that were the emotional equivalent of saying "move along, don't notice us, nothing of interest happening here."

Trey's already pale skin blanched to grey and he cringed back against Saran reflexively. Saran's arm came around his waist and pulled him back against solid support, anchoring him like a steel band. Saran's eyes blazed and he almost bared his teeth at Alphonse; the tension suddenly ratcheted up several notches.

Alphonse de _y_ l'Almonté hadn't been a Patriarch for so long nor survived two assassination attempts by his own child by being an idiot. Saran and Trey Logan were newly bonded, and he knew a Sentinel on the verge of going feral when he saw one. This was not the clinical, detached LEO High Commissioner, this was papa bear protecting his cub.

"Forgive me." Alphonse kept his tone low and apologetic.

Trey did not move from the comfort of Saran's supporting embrace, but he relaxed and colour came back to his face, Saran calming down in exponential proportion. "I-I'm s-sorry, Sir. It's just that Rosetta's daughter attends a girls' boarding school on Mars that's a bit expensive and we just thought…"

Cutting in expertly, William Ellison said, "How do you know Ruis de _y _l'Almonté is the father of this little girl?"

"I- I- I know her mother. I was there when it went down…" Trey cast an anxious look at Alphonse.

Correctly interpreting the glance, Alphonse sighed. "I am only too well acquainted with my son's activities over the past few years, Trey Logan. Tell us what happened."

Trey gave a little shrug, clearly uncomfortable. "Rosetta Montalban is one of our civilian employees. She works as a Legal Executive in Halfway Station's Prosecutor General's office?" They nodded to indicate their knowledge that Prosecutor General was the equivalent of an American District Attorney or a British Crown Prosecution Barrister. "That's where she m-m-met R-R-Ruis. But Rosetta wouldn't date him. She's very traditional, comes from a respected local family…so Ruis began to…court her. It was a game to him." He shot a quick glance at Alphonse's bleak face and hurried on. "He used an assumed name, and at the time I had no idea who he was either. He pretended to be a management executive in one of House van Zant's companies on Federation. I guess he didn't want to use his own House in case somebody checked and found out who he really was. He did all the right things, said all the right things – chaperoned dates, gifts for the family, asking her father's permission to date her formally. He built an entire life from the ground up. It never occurred to anyone, not even me, that he wasn't anyone other than Eduardo Vasquez, a wealthy, upwardly mobile young executive from Federation. He went the whole way; he bought Rosetta a beautiful antique engagement ring, booked the Montalban family chapel for the wedding, had a stag party, the works –"

"So when Rosetta found herself pregnant, nobody really minded that much, even her family," Ehlan Van den Gaerde spoke for the first time, her stunningly beautiful face downcast with wise sorrow.

Trey sighed. "When she told him, Ruis – or Eduardo as we thought – seemed delighted. A week after that, Rosetta had the embryo removed and scanned to remove genetic defects and increase IQ, but there was a shortage of uterine replicators at the time due to a baby boom caused by the Great Martian Winter Storm – remember that?" He asked them rhetorically. "Anyway, Rosetta hadn't been having any problems with gestation so she had the embryo implanted back in her womb for a body birth. That was the day she told Eduardo the embryo would develop into a girl. He threw her a big baby shower and we all asked for the sex so we knew what colours to buy. A few days later, Eduardo was recalled urgently to Federation for a big contract his company was working on and would be gone for three Earth weeks. When she didn't hear form him after four, Rosetta started trying to get hold of him. When she couldn't, she asked me as a favour to find him."

"What did you do?" Saran's tone was gentle as he mentally cocooned his Guide with reassurance and affection.

Trey found he couldn't look at Alphonse's sad, weary eyes any more. "I couldn't find him. The van Zant personnel records for their companies on Federation showed no employee by the name of Eduardo Vasquez. House Stantley had one a few blocks away from where Eduardo claimed his office was, but when I checked, that Eduardo Vasquez was a 115 year-old-grandfather and a Doctor of Biochemistry who hadn't left Federation in over five years. Then Ruis came back to Halfway…I don't know what happened, only he and Rosetta were present…I found her – distraught – in one of the docking rings."

Trey felt Saran's arm tighten around his waist and felt the encouragement from Gage and Blair as they like his Sentinel caught the slight pause on his word and gleaned from his sad memories that Rosetta had been in the process of attempting to kill herself when Trey came across her. "The upshot of it was that Rosetta saw him and went across to ask what had happened. He basically admitted his real identity, told her that their engagement was meaningless, and walked away with some drinking buddies laughing his head off…" Trey fell silent. Rosetta had been a lot more explicit in what Ruis had said, how the man had gloated over taking her virginity, though he'd expressed it in much more vile terms, and how he'd "taught" her not to be such a prissy little slut, and she could just abort that whore in her belly; Alphonse didn't need to know those things.

Trey clung to the feel of Saran's mind in his – he wasn't alone. "Rosetta decided to have Rosehannah anyway. Her family and friends were all very supportive. After all, Ruis had suckered all of us, so who were we to point the finger of blame?" Trey wound down.

Alphonse blew out a breath. "Seven years ago, Ruis went to Halfway Station and remained for two solid years, bar a few weeks. It was the longest he'd stayed in any one place and I was pleased; I hoped it was time he was finally buckling down…Thank you for this information. I will right my son's wrong." Alphonse gave a jerky nod of acknowledgement to William Ellison and strode off without a backward glance, his back rigid.

"We'll see you all in the morning." Saran's tone brooked no argument as he began to lead Trey towards their suite.

There was none. The group of pallid, weary-eyed people separated and began the business of retiring with heavy hearts. The past week had brought little in the way of positive things and tonight had been no better. Alphonse was basically a decent man who had made the mistake of being an overindulgent parent.

Saran locked the door of the guest suite behind them automatically even though such a precaution was unnecessary in the Ellison ziggurat. As long as they stayed, their safety was the personal responsibility of the host Matriarch or Patriarch and it was unthinkable that any harm befall the honoured guests of the House. Trey simply crawled into the huge antique four-poster bed, having removed all his clothing bar a pair of boxer shorts. Saran saw that he was shivering slightly beneath the covers and rapidly removed his own clothing so he too was clad only in boxer shorts before ordering the lights to dim and climbing into the bed.

Trey huddled close, trembling, his skin cool. Saran immediately tugged the thick bedclothes around them into a cocoon and held Trey, stroking his hair, pleased when the younger man rapidly relaxed now he was safe with his Sentinel. Saran picked up the distressed memories that he had previously missed during their initial Bonding when he was busy banishing the feelings of inadequacy that Trey had over his kidnap and abuse; flashes of a pretty, clearly pregnant young Spanish-descended woman collapsing against Trey in a storm of weeping as he forcibly removed the blaster from her grip, holding and comforting her despite the fact that her storming emotions nearly sent him into overload and were like acid against his empathic connections.

"S-Sorry," hiccoughed Trey, mumbling against Saran's chest and sniffing wetly.

"Sshh, it's all right."

Trey looked at him. "It's just that I was a _detective_, you know...I kind of knew there was something _off_ about him, but I just never gave it a thought…if only I'd checked him out at the beginning…"

"If only wishes were horses, beggars would ride," Retorted Saran, quoting the ancient Earth proverb. "You had no rational reason to doubt that Eduardo Vasquez was exactly who he claimed to be. Besides…" he lowered his tone to a growl, "I learned this morning that you will be a detective _again_."

"I applied for a detective's slot with the LEO Commission," Trey acknowledged with no hint of apology in his tone, pleased to be veering away from the unpleasant memories.

Saran was pleased with his Guide's increasing confidence, but far from happy with his career choice. "I see my mother's hand in this."

"She's a great woman," Trey replied blandly.

Saran snorted loudly and glared down at him. "Oh, is that what you call it?"

Trey grinned back up at him, then sobered. "I love being a police officer, even if it is often a harrowing job. I've proved to _myself_ that I'm not the useless weakling mistake Grandfather believes me to be. I know you're my Sentinel and you will protect me, but I won't be a victim any more. I need to have a foundation for my self-esteem, especially when Kessler gets off Styx. Six years for embezzlement is nothing."

"If being a detective makes you happy, that's what you'll do," Saran promised him, sending a subtle command to sleep.

Trey gave a sudden cavernous yawn, his eyelids drooping; Saran hugged him close and continued to lightly comb his fingers through Trey's hair as the young man slipped into a deep, peaceful slumber, but his face was at odds with his gentle actions. Over the past days, since the very public implosion of Kessler's loathsome network, Saran and quite a few other people, including Dark Angels like the previously unsympathetic Chris "Hellhound" Larabee, had been given an uncomfortable insight into the subtle prejudice and negative attitudes faced by many empaths. Though mercifully in a minority, some people amongst the angry, distraught families of the guilty had actually uttered the words, "but they're only empaths", often in a tone of confusion that showed they genuinely, sincerely could not understand what all the fuss was about. Starting now there was going to be a sea change. Once back at work, Saran was going to go through the legislation with a fine-tooth comb to ensure anti-empath loopholes were closed and to bulk up protective laws.

Curled next to him, Trey gave a snuffling snore and Saran waited until his settled down again. As Saran allowed his own eyes to finally close, a wide, cruel smile curved his lips – Leo Kessler would never be a problem again. Eventually of course Trey would find out and Saran would be scolded by his Guide, but he could deal with that.

Saran's Sentinel sight easily penetrated the night when he felt an indentation at the foot of the bed. An unusually large snow-leopard with unnaturally human blue-silver eyes was curled up atop the covers, a small African Black footed Wildcat sleeping peacefully between it's front paws; the Wildcat was definitely larger than the first time Saran had seen it. As if in full knowledge of his thoughts, the snow leopard gave him a look of vicious approval. Saran winked at it and then resolutely closed his eyes for sleep. He just wished he could be there about three Earth hours from now to see the look on Kessler's face…

_**About 0500 hours Earth time, USS Nemesis on temporary prison transport duty, above the planet Styx…**_

The _Nemesis _settled nicely into synchronous orbit above the prison planet. Her Executive Officer – XO - Cody Baines checked the meteorological readings and was unsurprised to see it was raining; it was always raining on Styx, which was largely why it was such a miserable place.

An M-type Earth sized planet also the third rock from it's sun, Styx had five medium size continents and a wide scattering of small islands and atolls across it's surface. The two most temperate-climate continents in the Southern hemisphere were used for minimum-security prisoners, men on one, women on the other, and so forth. Another two landmasses about the size of Australia straddled the equator, their weather patterns to violent for habitation, but conveniently there were two large, cooler and wetter landmasses in the North Eastern Hemisphere that housed the maximum-security prisoners. About a century ago, a land bridge had formed there allowing male and female prisoners to intermingle, but compulsory contraceptive implants in all prisoners ensured no children were born on the blighted world. The land bridge, however, was far from stable and would probably disappear within the next few decades, courtesy of the raging ocean.

That was why Styx had no ground-based life forms larger than an Earth fox and why each continent was perilously close to a hermetically sealed ecosystem, bar the avian species. Due to the orbit of three moons and it's sun, Styx's weather was given to almost constant wind and rain. The oceans separating the land were in constant tumult, an endless vista of raging seas, tsunamis and tidal waves – solid "walls" of water over one hundred feet high were a daily occurrence. Trying to move from one landmass to the other across the surface was synonymous with suicide; the only way to traverse Styx was via the air, and if you controlled the air, you controlled the planet – it was why it was such a perfect planet for a prison. There was nowhere for the inmates to escape to once they were on a particular continent.

At the moment, Cody Baines had more important concerns than Styx's weather as he checked the instruments one last time – then left. To leave the Bridge completely unmanned as he was doing was one of the Navy's biggest No-Nos and he was laying himself wide open to all manner of charges. Such an eventuality was unlikely; prison transports were lightly manned and all the crew bar himself and the Captain were asleep in their cabins. In fact, the Captain was why Cody was making his way along the _Nemesis'_ deserted corridors. The man was Up To Something.

Nobody ever wanted prison transport duty, but it was IFP Navy Standard Operating Procedure that everyone at some point do a "tour of duty" on a prison transport ship, particularly those men and women who had ambitions to be officers or who were officers seeking to advance. Only certain special forces units, such as the SAS, SBS and the United States Navy SEALs – who still bore their country of origin's designation despite having been seconded to the IFP at the latter's inception centuries ago – were exempt.

Physically the duty wasn't that onerous. All prisoners were placed in cryogenic stasis prior to being loaded aboard the ship. All the names of the guards and cryo-technicians were placed in a hat, drawn out in pairs and randomly assigned to a particular cryo-tube on the off-chance that a prisoner might successfully have tried to bribe somebody to "fake" the procedure. Each prisoner's tube was stored in a small locked cell containing shower and toilet facilities. They were awoken once the prison ship was in orbit above Styx, allowed to shower and change into their durable prison uniforms and boots, then rendered comatose with sleep gas while being loaded onto basic floater-pads that were ejected from the transport at about twenty feet above the surface of the relevant continent's drop-off/collection post. The pads lowered themselves down to the surface and the prisoners woke up to find themselves safely on the ground.

Psychologically, the duty was stressful. Understandably a prison transport was hardly a cheery, upbeat place. The low crew ratio in respect to the transport's relative size meant each crew member could isolate him or herself with long periods alone, which was what the Navy brass wanted to see. Cody knew prison transport duty was compulsory, because it was a tool used by those "up top" to assess a person's suitability for promotion and/or officer candidate school; they were on the lookout for those who coped well with the depressing duty. It showed those who displayed negative or abusive tendencies towards the prisoners in general or towards certain categories of prisoners, which indicated a bigoted attitude or a bullying one – something hardly desirable. Catching more flies with honey than vinegar was a truism. A commanding officer who inspired fear, resentment, anger and mistrust from his or her subordinates would be divisive, disruptive and detrimental to the Navy. Some prisoners also did try bribes for various reasons and the brass wanted to know if anyone proved unscrupulous enough to accede, since such a person was less likely to balk at selling or stealing classified military information for money.

Cody caught sight of his reflection as he neared the monitoring room for the cells; Danish on his mother's side he was tall, well-built, fairly good-looking with blond hair and deep blue eyes. Ruefully he accepted that the colouring hadn't done him much good in the Navy and not especially with Captain Kendrick. Cody had always intended to be a career officer, finishing up as a something-star Admiral, and as he sneaked closer to the door, he acknowledged to himself that he had often been somewhat untactful in allowing his ambitions to manifest. Nevertheless, his work had been exemplary and he had shown innovation and initiative. All he got from Kendrick, however, was a series of dour looks and monosyllabic orders, though the man showed complete faith in his ability to be left in sole command of the _Nemesis_ bridge.

Now however, Cody was sure that something was going on. Kendrick had been even more reserved and uncommunicative since they had taken charge of this latest consignment of prisoners; in a departure from the norm, the rest of the crew was largely made up of young, inexperienced ratings rather than the able veterans Kendrick usually – and stridently – insisted upon. Kendrick's passive acceptance of being fobbed off with untried youths was what had first ignited Cody's curiosity. Then he went to engineering to correct a mistake one the engineering trainees had made entering data in a computer console. Entirely by accident, he found traces of deliberately erased tightbeams that someone had been sending to Kendrick's personal palm reader via an unlicensed bio-crystal hidden in the engine core, which meant that the tightbeam messages would not be recorded on the _Nemesis'_ computer logs as arriving or leaving – another violation of Navy policy. Surely Kendrick couldn't have been bribed by a prisoner?

Like all the ship's doors, that of the Cell Monitor Room was designed to slide open and shut automatically, recording all who entered and exited. Now however, the door was three-quarters open, the monitoring mechanism having been disabled so that a person could enter without being recorded. Leaning against the corridor wall, Cody had a clear view of the room and he looked towards where Kendrick was standing in front of the monitor for cell 36, his arms folded across his chest. Lights were flashing on the console indicating that the occupant of cell 36 was being defrosted. Cody frowned. It was an hour too early.

About six feet high, Kendrick was in his early fifties, his hair just beginning to go "salt-and-pepper". He had a craggy, square face and perceptive nut-brown eyes, now narrowly focussed on the screen in front of him. The occupant of cell 36 had extracted himself from the cryo-tube and was now wavering on his feet slightly as he sought for his balance and looking around him with acute distaste. The man headed towards the washbasin and Kendrick flicked on the intercom with anticipation obvious on his face.

Cody strained to see then jerked back reflexively as the prisoner let out a blood-curdling shriek and leapt back from the small mirror as if he'd been bitten! Disgust twisted Cody's face as he saw the mark on the prisoner's forehead. Each prisoner had a tattoo marked on their forehead which symbolised their crime and ensured that mistakes weren't made when dropping them off on Styx – say a minimum security prisoner due for release in two years accidentally dropped on the maximum security/life-without-parole area. Prisoner 36 bore the mark of a sex criminal, the rare "multiple" mark indicating paedophilia, rape and sex slavery. He began to rant and swear as he crashed around the room.

Oblivious to anything behind him, Kendrick spoke into the intercom, "Hello, Kessler."

The man glared up at the intercom, rage twisting his face. "WHAT IS THIS? I was sentenced to six years for EMBEZZLEMENT! ARE YOU PEOPLE STUPID!"

Kendrick laughed, a sound without humour. "I know what you were sentenced for, Kessler. However Saran Van den Mikhail asked me for a little favour; something more _appropriate_ for the man who for decades has been kidnapping defenceless young people and selling them as sex slaves or to illegal vivisection labs. You're not going to the minimum security camp to serve six years for embezzlement; you've been branded as the sex criminal you are and you will spend the remainder of your life on Styx's maximum security facility." Kendrick tone became hard. "Just like your many victims, Kessler, you've been well and truly fucked."

Like a spotlight on a dark stage, it all suddenly became clear to Cody Baines. Like the rest of the known universe, he had followed the news media as an intergalactic empire of organised sex slavers and rogue scientists was ripped apart by the Dark Angels, with multiple arrests and convictions of dozens of prominent and high-ranking individuals as well as ordinary Average Joes. There had been rumours that a single person, the semi-mythical "The Man", had also been captured by the Dark Angels, but nothing had come of it and not even the most hard headed journalist was dumb enough to starting _demanding_ answers of the Dark Angels!

However, offensive though it might be, Kessler had obviously brokered a legitimate deal for a lesser embezzlement charge upon giving evidence against his clients, and that deal had to legally stand. If it became known what Saran Van den Mikhail had done to Kessler, he would be publicly disgraced and definitely indicted by his own Supreme Court. Kendrick as an accomplice before, during and after the fact would be in the dock with him, his Naval career in ruins.

Kessler had gone very still. "How much?" he finally rasped to the camera. "I can triple – hell, quadruple – whatever Mikhail is paying you for this."

Kendrick considered for a long moment. "There's only one thing I want…"

"It's yours," Promised Kessler instantly.

"Really? I thought only God could resurrect the dead," Kendrick said coolly. "Can you bring my brother back to life, Kessler? That's my price – resurrect Tony Kendrick." He clicked off the intercom.

Kessler went berserk; though unheard, his screaming and yelling were obvious. Watching him with deep satisfaction, Kendrick reached out and pressed the pad that flooded the cell with sleeping gas, sending Kessler crumpling to the floor.

Exiting the room, Kendrick faltered a moment as he saw his XO, then carried on. The two men walked in silence before Cody ventured, "I have a decent brandy in my quarters. Would you care for a glass, Sir?"

Kendrick shot him a sidelong look. Both men knew it meant that Baines had no intention of revealing what he had observed, which would have destroyed both Saran Van den Mikhail and Captain Kendrick. "I think I will."

As XO, Cody's quarters were second in size to the Captain's stateroom, but Kendrick had never been inside until now. A strong, tightly knit crew worked much more efficiently and smoothly than a disunited one, thus saving time and money. Nowhere was this interdependent relationship more important than between a Captain and his or her XO. Each needed to rely and trust the other implicitly; if there were discord there, the entire crew would suffer and eventually fracture. There hadn't been crew changes – or openings – aboard some ships for some time, like Daric Slater's _USS Nimitz IV._

The confined quarters of a spaceship, where a crewmember could not even go on deck to feel the wind or sun on their face for a few moments of relief, meant that rigid protocols for privacy had become Navy policy. Nobody, not even an Admiral, could enter the cabin of a ship's lowest Rating unless specifically invited. Only a search in a criminal investigation permitted unsanctioned entry. Baines and Kendrick's initial interaction had been rocky, and the invitation had never been extended – until now.

Kendrick made an appreciative noise as his sipped the fine cognac, and Cody decided to take the bull by the horns as it were.

"Do you need any...ah..._help_...at all, Sir?"

Kendrick gave him a measuring look, then shook his head. "No. I think it best just two people be involved in this, though your…_discretion_ is appreciated."

Cody nodded. "I'm sorry about your…brother."

It was a gamble and for a moment he thought Kendrick was going to put him down, but then the older man leaned back, his face suddenly very tired and looking a lot older than his fifty odd years. "I'm the only one who remembers him now." He took another sip of cognac. "Your family come from Earth, don't they?"

"Denmark."

Kendrick began to speak again, his sentences short and abrupt, with long pauses in between. "Hmm. Mine were farmers on Lithonia – not rich but we could afford with reason what we wanted if we worked hard. Lithonian beef is the finest in the Inhabited Galaxies…my little brother, Tony, was special. There was a big age gap and mum and dad had always wanted a big family but they only had us two. He was brilliant. Could do things with circuit boards you can't imagine. He only had to look at a machine and it would start working again. We had such big plans for Tony. He went to the best school on Lithonia; mum and dad worked all hours so he could sit his entrance exam for one of the colleges on Federation. We were so proud when he passed and we celebrated for a week when he got a full Agronomy Commission Scholarship to the Herriott School…"

"He never made it," Cody guessed softly.

"No. He was an empath. He was an ER9, too weak to be a Guide. It was never a problem at home; there'd been ER3s and 4s in mum's family way back to the dawn of time, though it often skipped a generation or two. We all waved him off at the spaceport. It hurt that he only sent us the odd postcard every year or so, but we were so proud of him…I joined the Navy on a five year Service Contract to earn enough for us all to go and see him on Federation…that's how I found him. We heard that the Underground Railroad was planning to rescue some Wild Empaths from an illegal vivisection lab; we wanted the Railroad, the empaths and the scientists. The Railroad weren't there, but we got the rest…I found my brother in one of the labs…tied down to a hospital bed…he looked like a skeleton. He was more dead than alive, but somehow he recognised me and realised what was going on…kept croaking for me not to touch him. He was carrying every STD known to man and crawling with lice…he was too weak to even cry…we got them to sick bay aboard ship but a lot of them were terminal…including Tony. I sat with him to the end…he'd got off the transport on Federation and been snatched immediately by Kessler. Kessler sent fake messages to the Herriot School and made sure their messages to Lithonia never got through. He paid some guy in an alley a hundred galacs to send our family a postcard every ten to twelve months…Tony's one wish was than mum and dad never found out what happened. They must never ever know the truth…"

Kendrick wiped at his face and took a big gulp of his brandy. "I know it sounds crazy, but the worst of the whole experience was when I went back to my family. When Tony died, I had a cremation and brought the ashes back home. I made up a story about a car crash and I faked up some holographs of the riotous three-week vacation I'd had with him on Federation. My family were devastated, but they were helped by the "knowledge" that Tony had Made It. I spun tales about his great apartment; his flash air-skiff; his beautiful girlfriends; his wonderful life. I ought to have won the Booker Prize…It was sheer hell every day. They were so proud of Tony, they put the holographs of us together on the walls. Some days the pressure was like an anvil sitting on my chest. I just wanted to jump up and scream out the truth at the top of my lungs…but I couldn't do that to them. When my immediate family died – my grandparents, then mum, then dad – I destroyed the holographs, moved Tony's urn to the family cemetery and went back to the Navy – full Service enlistment. The Navy physician was the same one who'd examined me the first time round and he nearly had a fit. I was thirty pounds underweight due to persistent ulcers, ate food so bland it was literally milk pudding because of chronic heartburn, was on the strongest legal medication for stress-induced migraine and had the blood pressure of a octogenarian…"

"But you did your job," Cody said, not flinching when Kendrick looked at him. "Your job was to protect your family and you did that. You kept your promise to your brother."

Whatever Kendrick might have said to this was never heard as a loud digital bell sounded throughout the ship. It was time to send the prisoners to the surface. Sharing a new trust, Kendrick and Baines acted. By the time the crew were at their stations, Captain Kendrick was in the monitoring room and XO Baines was on the bridge with nobody any the wiser that he hadn't been there all along.

Even the inexperienced crew made short work of placing the unconscious prisoners on the pads and launching them. Then the _Nemesis_ turned and began to accelerate through the atmosphere…

Kessler woke abruptly and first to find himself laying prone on a grassy hillock having rolled off an airbed. He stood groggily and blinked to focus – there were people surrounding him. They look at him with raw hostility and he glared back, then the wind whipped up the fringe of a brassy blonde woman directly in front of him, showing the bright red brand of a multiple murderess on her forehead and reality came crashing in as Kessler recalled the _Nemesis_.

"I've been set up – I'm an embezzler –" He got no further.

Scum of the earth, killers to the least of them, sex attackers and above all paedophiles tended not to survive beyond landing on Styx – too many of those now here, especially in the maximum-security section, had been childhood victims themselves. Something heavy smashed into his back and sent him sprawling. He struggled to rise and talk his way out of it, but another blow sent him back down. Boots and fists stamped and kicked; hands ripped and tore at clothing, fingers digging into flesh as they vented their hatred and lust. He struggled vainly, yelling and cursing and finally screaming. Unlike his victims, he had no buffer of drugged befuddlement as he experienced what hundreds of helpless men and women, most barely out of adolescence, had suffered because of his lust for wealth.

As the sun went down in a watery, rain-obscured pink glow, the night denizens out slowly – owls, rats, voles, foxes and other native Styx mammals such as one type that closely resembled an Earth badger. Cautiously they approached the bloodied, battered pulp of a thing that bore no resemblance to a recognisable species, but it was clearly dead.

The sun rose again and the inhabitants of Styx began their dreary existence once more, while far away the _USS Nemesis_ was heading for Deep Space Eleven station. So well had natural scavengers done their work that only a few red-stained patches of grass and some torn scraps of cloth showed that anything had ever been on the hillock…

Epilogue 

Simon Banks sat back in his deckchair and puffed contentedly on his cigar – his genuine, Cuban Havana cigar. If anyone had told him a few years ago that one day he would be sat on Eden at the personal invitation of the Patriarch William Ellison, he would have laughed himself silly - and then had the speaker committed to the nearest lunatic asylum.

The sky was a clear Peridot blue with tiny fluffy-wuffy snowy clouds scattered here and there. The winding river was wide and deep and crystal clear, the massive stately oaks currently shading him from the sun softly going _wisha-wisha-wisha _in the light breeze. Simon grinned to himself; Joan had certainly changed her tune about his job now! His blaster injuries had almost healed, though he'd nearly had a relapse when he'd received the heavily embossed personal invitation to recuperate on Eden, courtesy he had no doubt stemmed from his three friends and former co-leaders of the Underground Railroad.

Simon knew that times were a-changing as he looked at the six men nearby. On the other side of the bank, Gage and Race were holding fishing poles but bickering good-naturedly with each other like brothers. They were the most equal of the Bonded Pairs in that Gage carried the least emotional baggage and related to Race's High House position most readily. Soon they would be gone – aboard the _Nimitz_ as part of the expedition setting out to track the aliens' route out of the Inhabited Galaxies and maybe even catch up with them. Gage was studiously diffident, but oozed excitement from every pore.

Jim Ellison was returning as a Lieutenant to Cascade PD Major Crimes Unit, his cover story now real. Simon was sure that being Jim's superior, at least most of the time, was going to be a _real _barrel of laughs. Brigadier Lincoln Jackson had had a worrying smirk on his face as he met Simon, explaining how the Dark Angels operated now that Simon was to be "in the know". Following the destruction of Kessler's empire and William Ellison's personal endorsement, every state in the Americas had "signed up" again and the President found himself once more a tiger with teeth, but weeding out the corruption would be a mammoth task. At the moment, the only known living Dark Sentinel was scoffing at his Guide's peculiar fishing spear, a contraption that Blair vehemently asserted would catch more fish than Ellison's modern hi-tech pole. Simon inwardly rejoiced as Blair waved his arms about enthusiastically as if conducting an invisible orchestra. Gone was the guarded politeness, the subtle but definite withdrawal from all around him that had existed previously. He would always carry the burden of his suffering at the hands of Alexandra Barnes, but he had finally begun to live again.

Last but by no means least, LEO High Commissioner Saran Van den Mikhail, a man declared to possess "all the warmth of a polar ice cap", was currently giggling like a schoolboy as he and his Guide tried to untangle two fishing lines. Simon knew that Saran had made a very quiet, very private visit to Tracy Logan I, and had had that entire House shaking to it's foundations. He had proposed a comprise that, to his disgust, they had eagerly accepted – his Guide would officially take the name Trey Logan, leaving Tracey Logan IV for Terry on condition that his family did not attempt to contact him again unless via Saran. Trey was currently unaware of the visit, for Saran had been so contemptuous of Trey's family's desire to disassociate themselves from him, even though he was now the LEO High Commissioner's Guide, that he could not bring himself to speak civilly about them.

Saran also ensured that Trey was credited with averting House de _y _l'Almonté's Body Heir crisis. The arrival of the Patriarch Alphonse on her doorstep had been a great shock for Rosetta Montalban, but she had put aside her own anger and looked beyond the surface, recognising him as a genuinely contrite, kindly man. Wisely recognising that Alphonse had been just as much a victim of Ruis as they had been, the Montalban family had accepted the extended olive branch. Little Rosehannah Montalban de _y _l'Almonté was now the Body Heir of that High House, but her both her mother and Alphonse ensured that the parenting mistakes which turned Ruis into a monster were not being repeated, though Alphonse was putty in the child's hands. By one of those poignant coincidences that occur daily in real life, Rosehannah was the spitting image of the grandmother she'd never known, Alphonse's dead Consort.

"Are you saying this is my fault, Guide?" Saran's tone was a loud mock-growl that brought Simon back to the present and he watched as Saran glared down at Trey while tugging futilely at the hopelessly tangled lines.

"Duh, yeah!" Trey retorted cockily.

Saran stepped into Trey's personal space but clearly struggled to hold the glare; Trey leaned against him and smirked up at his Sentinel tauntingly, inciting him to Bond. Saran growled and stepped back, aiming a light swat at Trey's backside which the Guide nimbly dodged before moving away laughing through the water, leaving Saran with both rods to untangle or give up on.

Simon smiled to himself. Despite Hunter having prudently excused himself from this little trip – having been finagled into the Dark Angels courtesy of some heavy wheedling by Jim and Blair – on the grounds of a Bondless Sentinel being surplus to requirements, Simon knew that there would be some intense Bonding tonight, the presence of two other Sentinels triggering a possessive streak in the third. Trey was more the traditional "subservient" in-the-background Guide, but he was naturally shy and lacked confidence. However, when it came to the important things, he could be as formidable as Blair Sandburg or Gage Butler any day. He was also not above a little manipulation – Saran Van den Mikhail visibly preened under the obvious devotion of his Guide and Simon was quite sure he knew exactly who had whom twisted around his little finger.

He took another puff on his cigar and bent his head back to his book while around him the "children" played…

In a galaxy quite far away… 

Stars innumerable glittered like blue-white diamonds on black silk, a vast and immeasurable expanse. Various planets in this area of space were L- and M-type planets, but while there was lush vegetation and abundant fauna, no sentient life existed. Therefore it was unnoticed that if you looked closely, certain patches of the star-spangled vista were slightly fuzzy and out of focus.

Slowly colossal shapes wavered into existence. White, ghostly translucent, a myriad of rainbow-coloured pulses twinkled and faded and danced along the breadth of them. They were almond shaped with long trailing tendrils; they expanded and contracted like colossal interstellar jellyfish, but were clearly space-going vessels of some kind. They floated unmoving in the depths of this uncharted space, communing in some silent manner. From far, far behind a signal had finally come through, emitted from long-abandoned planets. The vessels/creatures remained still. Little brothers and little sisters were different; they were special. But the very young were often easily distracted and liable to grab at every new toy that came along before returning to their original focus. No matter – their patience was eternal, their vigilance indefatigable.

In the depths of the universe, they waited in majestic patience for their siblings to come and find them…

THE END… 

FOR NOW…

© 2003 C D Stewart

_ Author's note – The Image of God was written by Martin Gilbert Rhynd Stewart (1892-1973), who fought in and somehow survived all the terrible battles so named; it left him with an abiding hatred of war._

Cat explains it all…

I was first introduced to **THE SENTINEL** at the **MAGNIFICENT 7 GLOBAL GATHERING** in Chester, England, 2001 by a Scottish lady who had every episode up to **"Sentinel Too, Part I"** and who loaned me these. Though a successful _non-fiction_ writer, **The Sentinel** enabled me to write my first fan-fiction – I was very nervous and felt that I couldn't do justice to **The Magnificent 7** because of the plethora of main characters (though I am now writing **Magnificent 7,** **Stargate SG-1 **and **Angel** fan-fiction). **The Sentinel's** smaller group of three central roles - Blair, Jim, Simon - worked much better for me. So I began to read a lot of The Sentinel fan fiction to get some idea of what to do and how to ensure my stories at least aspired to these wonderful tales – **Cascade Library**, the wonderful **Wolfpup's Den**, **Starfox's Mansion**, **Faux Paws Productions** and **Black Panther Productions**, **Mackie's Idol Pursuits**, etc.

Then I came across **Susan Foster's** site. Particularly her **GDP series**, along with the **Dark Guide**, **Dark Sentinel**, **Learning Curve** and the **Mirror Series** she was writing with Maedoc set my neurons on fire and a whole avalanche of ideas came pouring in. As **Linda Stoops** so aptly put it in her **New Kid In Town** (on Wolfpup's Den site), "…entire scenes, with _dialogue_," popped up fully formed in my cerebellum in what became **Bear Necessities – GDP version**.

Unfortunately I hit a major problem – not a paucity of ideas, but far too many. Every sentence I wrote seemed to spark off a dozen new story threads (and not just for **The Sentinel** either) and no matter how fast I typed or how many scraps of paper I frantically scribbled on or how much I gabbled into my Dictaphone, I simply could NOT keep up. My imagination was like the M25 at rush hour – so _much_ traffic that everything just ground to a grid locked halt.

Like **Bear Necessities – non GDP version **(95 finished honest), and my **"Telempathy" series **(a third through story #3, **Perspective**), **Walking With Dark Angels** was meant to be **_SHORT_**. It was a way to unblock the build up of some of my story ideas and get them out of the way so I could go back to **Bear Necessities – GDP**. No problem I thought - four chapters maximum, take about two months to write…but it grew and grew and **GREW!**

What made it so easy was that no cross checking was necessary. With **Bear Necessities – GDP** I was torn between wanting Susan/Maedoc to write every story NOW or leave it long enough for me to finish **Bear Necessities – GDP**. I had to keep going back to her site, mainly to ensure I got names and physical descriptions right and also to see how much I wanted to expand on scenes that Susan/Maedoc had left ambiguous, perhaps for later plot development.

For example Susan/Maedoc published **Mirror #6 **in August 2003, and Susan said she was about halfway through **Throwback**, the third in the **Dark Sentinel** series (_not to be confused with her stand-alone story of the same name_). In **Mirror #6** there is still no hint of the reason for Hunter's deep hatred for William Ellison. Another example is in the GDP story where Blair's father is revealed to be a GDP administrator, one George Goodman. We learn Goodman impregnated two women _before_ Naomi, had one child Thomas Goodman by his first marriage _after_ Naomi and _at least_ two children by his second marriage as revealed in this story. This means that Blair has as a bare minimum five semi-siblings, though only Thomas Goodman is mentioned by Susan. As I genealogist I couldn't leave those links unexplored, so wrote these semi-siblings into my story, giving Blair two elder half-sisters, his half-brother Thomas Goodman of course, and three younger half-brothers by Goodman's second marriage, plus a nephew – Thomas Goodman's son, just for good measure.

My final mistake was to post **Destined Part I**, **Walking With Dark Angels** and **Seven Dials **in rapid succession on my site in the casual belief that I would finish them and post in short order – forgetting that pride cometh before you find yourself flat on your face in front of everyone. Obviously the major part of it was my granddad's stroke, though he has made a brilliant recovery, but other factors have played their part. I also suffer a chronic muscle disease which means that sitting too long at a computer typing serious pain. There is also my imagination, which is far, far too active. I have a small pool of regularly browsed sites like **Wolfpup's Den, Susan Foster's site, Starfox's Mansion, Cascade Library, Idol Pursuits**, etc., and am always coming across somebody who makes me realise that I could write it better, tighter or expand it – I look at people like **Linda Stoops, Susan Foster, Maedoc, Rimilod/Dolimir**, etc., etc., and despair of ever reaching their level.

To be honest, I may never finish **Bear Necessities – GDP** but I posted it because it was the genesis for **Dark Angels **and for the **Telempathy Series**, as well as **Bear Necessities – non GDP.**

Your comments are welcome. You will notice how the story peters out into "detached" individual scenes at the end which was me trying desperately to get as much down from my imagination as possible.

As I've said before, there WILL be a sequel, but it will take a while and will NOT be posted until the story is 99 finished as I have learned from my mistakes! I didn't realise until I checked back that I wrote Chapters I & II of Walking With Dark Angels in 2001 and it is now September 2003! Sincere apologies for making you all wait so long!

Finally, I'm glad so many people seem to have enjoyed the Dark Angels – and _they'll be back_!

© 2003 by Catherine D. Stewart


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